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January 1,2018Trump Military Readiness Plans Update 01 ? What Will 2018 Bring? Since his first day in office, President Donald Trump has promised to “rebuild” the military by increasing the number of ships, aircraft and ground combat vehicles in the services’ inventory. Yet defense officials have said the real work on that goal begins in 2018. Trump’s budget for the current fiscal year calls for increases in troop numbers and some military equipment, but Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on several occasions has said the “real growth” in the military buildup begins with the fiscal 2019 budget, the first drafts of which will be unveiled in February. “We didn’t get into this situation in one year, and we aren’t going to get out of it in one year,” Mattis said during congressional testimony in July. “We’re going to have to have sustained growth in [fiscal] 2019 to 2023.” Congress still hasn’t settled on its fiscal 2018 appropriations for defense (or any other government departments) and is operating under a continuing budget resolution until Jan. 19. That means before officials can start debating a 2019 military buildup, they’ll have to fix the current budget problems first. But lawmakers and White House officials have already provided some hints of the work to come. In the 2018 defense authorization bill, Congress called for big end strength increases, including 8,500 new soldiers, 5,000 new sailors, 5,800 new airmen and 1,000 new Marines. Trump has also publicly promised a 355-ship Navy and at least another 100 combat aircraft for the Air Force. But all of that will require congressional approval of billions more in defense spending during the next several years. And mandatory federal spending caps remain in place until fiscal 2021. Trump’s past suggestions of cutting other domestic programs to pay for the increased military might have met fierce opposition from Democratic Party leaders and is a major reason why the fiscal 2018 budget is still unsettled. The question is whether Trump, in his second year in the White House, will adopt different tactics to boost military spending or whether the same budget fights and fiscal brinkmanship will be repeated in the coming years. [Source: DefenseNews | Leo Shane | December 27, 2017 ++]**********************NDAA 2018 Update 20 ? Putting it All TogetherPresident Donald Trump signed the FY 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 12 DEC in a ceremony in the White House. The final bill authorizes a defense budget of $700 billion for DoD. Total authorized funding in the legislation calls for $634 billion in the base budget with an additional $66 billion approved in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding. Congress approved the legislation in November, but congressional leadership did not send the bill on to the president until December in hopes Congress would be able to reach consensus and vote to raise the defense spending caps imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011, which the FY 2018 NDAA exceeds, and pass a defense appropriations bill. This still remains an issue even though the president has signed the NDAA. His signing serves to put further pressure on Congress to pass a defense budget, but Congress needs to act now if the NDAA is to serve its intended purpose. Instead of passing a budget, Congress has, at this point, passed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government only through Dec. 22 and is in the process of negotiating another CR that basically “kicks the can” down the road into January or February. This state of play does nothing to serve the nation and the troops and their families. Further, stopgap strategies do not allow DoD to manage their readiness requirements or plan ahead for the next mission in this challenging and dynamic security environment. Congress' most important responsibility under the Constitution is to provide for the common defense of the nation - with that in mind, the nation needs Congress to pass a defense budget that fully funds the FY 2018 NDAA. Doing so will enable the necessary programs that support both the troops and readiness. However, without a budget, support again will be marginalized, leaving our nation short of the requirements called for in the NDAA. MOAA has put out recent calls to action and supporting “On Watch” columns to their membership asking them to contact their congressional representatives to urge them to pass a defense budget, not a CR. We need you to do this again, before another CR is passed.Five Key Policy Decisions In The FY 2018 NDAA That Affect You - But Won't Happen Without A Budget1. A 2.4-percent active duty pay raise: This pay raise, equal to the Employment Cost Index (ECI), helps keep troops' pay competitive with private-sector wages. The administration originally requested a 2.1-percent raise - MOAA influenced Congress through a very effective and successful campaign to fully support the higher pay increase. This is the highest pay increase for troops since 2010. Even with this pay increase, a 2.6-percent pay gap remains because of capped pay raises in FYs 2014, 2015, and 2016. MOAAis focused on maintaining active duty military pay at the ECI and eliminating this pay gap over the next few years.2. Unchanged Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) calculation: The Senate tried for the second year in a row to tweak the calculation for BAH in a way that would have negatively impacted servicemembers, particularly dual military families. BAH is a component of each individual servicemember's earned compensation, so MOAA worked this issue hard with Congress to maintain the calculation as it currently is in law and will continue to do so on behalf of troops and their families.3. TRICARE: Despite yearlong efforts to prevent TRICARE fee increases, the final NDAA included progressive year-over-year increases in pharmacy copayments. Beneficiaries will see steady increases in their cost shares across all medication tiers, which will save DoD more than $2.1 billion by 2022 and fund improvements in military readiness and the Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance (SSIA). Most of the increases will be through the retail pharmacy sector, but beneficiaries still can obtain medications atmilitary pharmacies for free. The new fees will include mail-order generic prescriptions as well. By 2026, costs are projected to top off at $14 for a 30-day supply of a generic medication at a retail pharmacy and a 90-day supply by mail. Further, a 30-day supply of a nongeneric medication at a retail pharmacy will be $48, and a 90-day supply by mail will hit $44. Additionally, outside of the NDAA provision, the Defense Health Agency has introduced a new TRICARE fee structure that will be applied to the new TRICARE Select option. Increased fees also will apply to the existing TRICARE Prime option. Beneficiaries can view these changes at . These changes to the TRICARE fees and program options will take effect Jan. 1, 2018.4. More troops authorized: The FY 2018 NDAA authorizes an additional 20,000 troops - much needed by the services in the current and projected national security environment. The Army will increase by 7,500, the Navy by 4,000, the Marine Corps by 1,000, and the Air Force by approximately 4,100. Reserve forces across-the-board will grow by about 3,400. MOAA strongly supported in our advocacy efforts on the Hill these much-needed increases by DoD.5. Lessens the “widows tax”: Congress included a provision in the FY 2018 NDAA that provides a permanent extension to the SSIA. Without congressional action, 67,000 military survivors would lose $2,100 in 2018 if the allowance expired in May, as it was set to, and over $3,700 a year after that. By extending the SSIA and indexing future increases to COLA, Congress shows it is making a good-faith effort to address the widows' tax. Next year, MOAA will go back to Congress and ask it increase SSIA above COLA to further reduce the widows tax.-o-o-O-o-o- MOAA follows the NDAA throughout the year as the main vehicle for many of our legislative priorities. If you're interested in other provisions in the bill, you can view the conference report summary here: . [Source: MOAA Leg Up | Leo Shane III | December 12, 2017 ++]**********************DoD Fraud, Waste, & Abuse ? Reported 16 thru 31 DEC 2017San Diego, CA -- Two San Diego defense contractors were sentenced to 15 months each in prison 14 DEC in a case that exposes much deeper problems with the Navy’s supply procurement system and suggests a larger “gray market” involving both sailors and contractors operating without oversight. Jeffrey Harrington and Michael Mayer, owners of three supply companies, admitted to working outside the system set out for military contractors — a practice they partially justified with the claim that a lot of people do it. The three companies are based in Barrio Logan: Veteran Logistics sells medical supplies, Industrial Xchange offers building and industrial materials, and Boston Laser Technology specializes in office supplies. The Department of Defense could buy from a catalog of approved goods, supplied by contractors, through a web interface called EMALL, allowing the military to compare prices and encouraging competition. But the three companies bypassed that system by dealing directly with sailors and supply officers instead, negotiating prices for one material and then billing EMALL for a wholly different product that was off-catalog. For example, in 2011 Boston Laser Technology won contracts for more than 10,000 Post-It writing pads for $248,411 for the Maritime Expeditionary Security Group 2 at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia. At least, that’s what the contracts were supposed to cover. Rather than send Post-Its, the company sent 50 AC/DC transceivers at a price of $4,967 each for a grand total of $248,358. A $1.3 million order for bags and organizers for the Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 in Norfolk ended with delivery of $924,000 worth of skydiving gear, according to the plea agreement. Other items the Navy ended up receiving: pot holders, batteries, refrigerators, toner cartridges, rice cookers, even a Playstation 3 and two pink Nintendo systems, according to court records. The scope of the fraud is still unknown. Investigators audited 60 transactions in a four year period and found every one fraudulent — a mere slice of the $45 million in business the companies did with the Navy from 2008 to 2015. The audit showed a loss to the Navy of $1.4 million, prosecutors said. But defense attorneys fought back against accusations of price-gouging, claiming the pricing was competitively set. In many cases, they explained, where a dollar difference emerged, the Navy was given a “credit” to spend — sometimes it was spent, sometimes not, according to prosecutors. U.S. District Judge Michael Anello said the defense team submitted paperwork that was “somewhat persuasive” in showing that “the profit margin may not have been out of line with industry standards” and may not show a “systematically ripping off of the Navy.” Despite that possibility, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Kanter argued that this case is about the much larger issue of undermining the oversight and competitive market system, circumventing safeguards, and creating opportunity for back-room deals and corruption. In fact, government investigators have been able to trace back items — TVs, iPhones and more — in kickbacks to sailors who looked the other way and went along with the scheme, Kanter said. “They got to play God, in control of what their profit was,” Kanter said of Harrington and Mayer. As to the Navy participants, Kanter said in sentencing papers and in court that several military and civilian personnel have been subjects of this investigation, and many have already faced court martial and administrative discipline. One ship prosecutors suspect participated in fraudulent transactions is the Lake Erie, a guided-missle cruiser based in San Diego, according to court documents. No further information about those cases has been released. Harrington’s attorney, Gregory Vega, said his client — a Navy veteran — did not cut corners out of greed or malice, but instead had the best intentions to make the Navy fleet-ready. “The government always received product,” Vega argued. “This was not stealing from the government.” Mayer’s attorney, Joseph McMullen, said the men worked outside the system because it was cumbersome and faulty — not delivering to its customers the way they wanted to receive items. The business owners instead formed good relationships with the sailors and supply officers and gained a reputation of getting the job done, still for a reasonable price. “It’s capitalism at its best,” McMullen argued. EMALL has since been replaced with a new upgraded system for obtaining supplies. In addition to the prison sentences, both men were ordered to pay $10,000 in fines each and forfeit about $708,000. Both men also pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns. Harrington, 55, must pay about $141,000 in restitution to the IRS, and Mayer, 63, nearly $300,000. The three corporations must also share in the forfeiture and pay a separate $1 million fine. [Source: NavyTimes | Geoff Ziezulewicz | November 29, 2017 ++]-o-o-O-o-o-Lancaster, SC -- Three people are accused of possessing weapons and other military gear stolen from an Army National Guard armory in South Carolina. The Herald reports that 32-year-old Brandon Shane Polson, 23-year-old Austin Lee Ritter and 39-year-old Kimberly Denise Cannon were indicted 20 DEC on charges of having machine guns and a grenade launcher. Federal officials say three machine guns are still missing. It’s not known who stole the inventory. A federal affidavit says National Guard officials were unaware of the theft from the unsecured building. South Carolina National Guard spokeswoman Lt. Col. Cindi King says the federal investigation is ongoing. The weapons were discovered when Cannon was pulled over and arrested Nov. 26. Police later arrested Ritter and Polston at a motel on drug charges. [Source: The Associated Press | December 22, 2017 ++] -o-o-O-o-o-Las Vegas, NV -- A Nevada man who sold smoke grenades and military-issued ammunition stolen from the U.S. Air Force has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and two years’ probation. U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre says 38-year-old Temogen Tran Noguni of Henderson was sentenced 22 DEC in Las Vegas after pleading guilty in August to one count of unauthorized sale of U.S. property. Two co-defendants previously pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the case, including Jonathan Owens, a 27-year-old staff sergeant at Nellis Air Force Base. Federal prosecutors say Noguni acknowledged he bought the items from Owens in 2015. In addition to smoke grenades, the items included body armor vests, rifle scope, night vision binoculars and goggles. The ammunition included armor-piercing .50 caliber cartridges not available for public sale. Myhre says Noguni was arrested after he listed the items for sale on the internet. [Source: The Associated Press | December 26, 2017 ++]***********************VA Accomplishments in 2017 ? Secretary David Shulkin MessageOn 21 DEC Secretary Shulkin provided a year-end statement focused on VA accomplishments for 2017.? The text follows and at is a link here to see his accompanying video message: ?-o-o-O-o-o-Happy Holidays! 2017 has been a year of accomplishments for the Department of Veterans Affairs and this is a perfect time to reflect on, acknowledge, and thank all of those who have enabled our many accomplishments for Veterans during this past year. We owe so much to our Nation’s leaders and others in and outside of government for supporting and enabling improvements to the ways in which we serve Veterans:First and foremost, let me express my gratitude to President Trump. His leadership and vision have driven and inspired VA to better care for Veterans and their families. Among his many supportive acts and leadership initiatives, he has signed?9?bills to improve our ability to serve Veterans, as well as one Executive Order and three Presidential Proclamations; he has personally participated in and led six events honoring Veterans, and he has kept their interests foremost in the minds of all Americans by mentioning their service and sacrifices in 25 of his public speeches. He was the driving force behind the White House Hotline for Veterans, which opened for 24-7 service in October and has served more than 16,000 callers.Vice President Pence has also been critical to every initiative involving Veterans. He personally led our Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington and demonstrated his concern for Veterans by supporting and attending Honor Flight ceremonies and events such as the Wounded Warrior bicycle ride.Thanks to all the Members of Congress for making 2017 a legislative success for Veterans. With the unwavering support and leadership of our VA committees, Congress supported and passed groundbreaking legislation on VA Accountability, Appeals Reform, the Forever GI Bill, Veterans Choice Improvements, and Personnel Improvements and Extension of Choice funding.Thanks also to my fellow Cabinet Secretaries and leaders of Administrations for their departments and agencies support:Department of Defense: We are partnering on a new Electronic Medical Record and shared purchasing to better serve both Veterans and Service Members and best use taxpayer resources.Housing and Urban Development: Together, VA and HUD helped house over 61,000 homeless Veterans last year alone.Department of Energy: With DoE assistance, we’ve launched an important Veterans Brain Health Initiative and Big Data Super Computing to expand dramatically our research into Veterans’ health.Department of Labor: Working together, the unemployment rate for Veterans has dropped to 2.6%, the lowest in 17 years.Department of Education: With DoE’s support, VA helped enable more than 1 million Veterans to use the GI Bill in 2017.Health and Human Services: Our collaborations have led 620,000 Veterans to participate in precision medicine initiatives, achieve a reduction of 36% in the use of opioids, and produce over 10,000 research papers that will help us better serve Veterans and all Americans.Department of State: Thanks to DoS for coordinating the visits of dignitaries from 16 countries to the Department of Veterans Affairs.The Department of Justice has assisted with revising and coordinating new Telehealth regulations and regulations for prescriptions to improve Veterans’ access to care and medications.The Department of Interior helped provide employment opportunities for Veterans through the Park Ranger Internship Program.The Small Business Administration almost doubled the goal of 10 percent of federal contracts with Service Disabled Veteran Owned Business by achieving 19 percent.And thanks to our partners in the private sector for helping provide Veterans’ care. In 2017, VA authorized 6.1 million community care appointments, a 42 percent increase over 2016. These and other collaborations have helped VA make significant progress in serving Veterans and their families. We have become more transparent by posting wait times for Veterans’ appointments, Veterans’ satisfaction with VA care and services, facility quality scores and accountability actions. We’ve reduced dropped calls to our Veterans Crisis Line from 35% percent to less than 1 percent, ensured Veterans have same-day access to primary and mental health care at all our care facilities, identified 430 unused and under-utilized facilities for disposal, and improved claims processing times by 18 percent in 2017. All of these accomplishments have resulted in raising Veteran “Trust” Scores from a low of 46% in 2014 to 70% today. But we still have much work to do, and we at VA look forward to the continued support and leadership of President Trump, Members of Congress, Veterans Service Organizations, and all Americans as we fulfill Lincoln’s famous words “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.” As the year comes to a close, may God bless each and every one of you, and may God continue to bless this wonderful country of ours.[Source: VA News Release | December 21, 2017 ++]***********************VA Overpayments Update 01 ? Record Keeping & Communication ProblemsThe U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is sending thousands of overpayment notices telling veterans to pay back their benefits. When Navy veteran Isaac Daniel retired after 22 1/2 years of service, he qualified for disability benefits due to knee issues and near fatal intestinal problems. He started receiving monthly disability payments of $1,100 in 2006. That’s in addition to his retirement check of $1,200 per month. With a wife and five children all under the age of 19, Daniel relied on both checks. “Up until this point, I had wonderful things to say about the VA,” he said. “But out of the blue, this thing happened.” The VA's debt management center sent Daniel a letter in 2016 stating it paid him $18,000 more than what he was "entitled to receive." “Once I retired, I still had children and a wife, and in 2006 they said you didn’t have them anymore, according to their records,” he said. The VA told Daniel he never updated nor returned a dependent verification form sent to him. “They said they sent it,” he said. “I never received it. Never.” When Daniel called the VA to question the debt, he learned the VA sent the dependent verification form to an address he lived at 35 years ago. He said he thought he updated all his information when he applied for a VA loan and moved to Fort Washington, Maryland. “Everything was up to date,” he said. “Everything was, except the one place – disability.” So the debt management center began to garnish his disability check -- all $1,100 of it -- to pay back what the VA said it overpaid him dating to 2006. The sudden stop in disability benefits hit Daniel's budget hard. “It was a time when child care costs were higher because of summertime. A time when there was some housing repairs, automotive repairs,” he said. “Everything kind of hit all at the same time. I mean, a daughter in college.” Daniel is just one veteran News4 heard from. Zaldy Sabino, a Navy vet and Air Force retired, was told he owed more than $22,000. But Sabino said he never received any disability benefits during the time frame the VA alleges he did. “They said somebody was receiving it,” Sabino said. He has no idea who that "somebody" is.Navy veteran Robert Sullivan, who retired in 2005, said he received two direct deposits from the VA totaling more than $13,000, but didn't know why. He said when he called the VA looking for an answer, he didn't get one. “After numerous phone calls, nobody would tell me really anything,” he said. “They were very vague about it.” He said he spent part of the money when he got in a financial bind. Months later the VA sent him a letter asking him to pay it all back. “Of course I got the letter saying, ‘Hey, we want all this money back,’” he said. “Well, I don’t have it now.” Each vet said the VA had the wrong information when it came to dependents on their disability benefits.“They no longer believed I was married,” Sullivan said. “In fact, they didn’t believe I had ever been married.” The VA also questioned whether Zaldy had children. “This dependents admission by the VA only came recently,” he said. Since contacting News4, Sullivan’s and Sabino’s cases have been settled. Sullivan also reached out to Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, who stepped in to advocate on his behalf.“There is a level of incompetence that is irksome, but to the individuals affected, it can be quite earth-shattering,” Connolly said. Daniel said his monthly disability benefits have been reinstated. “They then refunded all the money back to me and gave me my monthly payments back,” he said. However, members of Congress said the problem with record keeping and communication still exists. “It’s not only maddening, it actually threatens a family’s budget and their ability to make their rent or their mortgage payment or keep food on the table,” Connolly said. He is just one advocate for these veterans. The VA has yet to give Congress any concrete plan to fix the problem, but this past summer it started offering a 12-month payment plan if veterans could not pay back the overpayment in full. The VA admits it sent more than 260,000 overpayment notices this year. It told Congress it sent 238,000 last year. The VA secretary denied numerous requests for an interview. Statement from VA spokesperson:When VA initially notifies Veterans of their benefits award, the department instructs Veterans to alert VA to any change in dependent status or a future change in address. The best way for veterans to avoid issues regarding dependent and spousal benefit overpayments is to alert VA immediately to any change in dependent status and promptly report any changes in address, as they are initially instructed to do upon notification of their benefits. While Veterans are responsible for informing VA of any changes in dependent status or address, VA also has a process by which it sends beneficiaries a Dependent Verification Letter to the most recent address provided by the Veteran in order to verify all the Veteran’s dependents. The Veteran has 60 days to return the completed document. If the document is not received, VA begins procedures to remove the dependents and recoup any overpayments made to the Veteran. If mail is returned as undeliverable by the U.S. Postal Service, VA’s Debt Management Center runs an address verification and will resend a debt letter to a more recent address if one is available. As of August 10, 2017, VA changed its overpayments collections policy so that Veterans are automatically placed into a 12-month recoupment plan, which provides significant financial relief in most cases. Prior to that, benefit recoupment was at 100 percent unless a payment agreement had been entered into. [Source: NBC News 4 | Susan Hogan | December 13, 2017 ++]***********************VA Medical Marijuana Update 37 ? VA Refutes Rumors of A New PolicyVeterans Affairs officials are denying a report that they have softened their stance on medical marijuana, insisting that updated guidance on the drug does not amount to a new policy change. On 19 DEC, Marijuana Majority founder Tom Angell posted on a new five-page guidance issued by the department earlier this month focused on VA physicians “discussing the use of marijuana and its impact on health, including veteran-specific treatment plans.” The document also encourages VA doctors to “discuss marijuana use with any veterans requesting information” due to “its clinical relevance to patient care.” But VA spokesman Curt Cashour said the new guidance is not a new endorsement of medical marijuana by the department or even a change in existing VA policies. “It is updated guidance to encourage veterans to let their VA physicians know if they are using marijuana for medicinal or recreational purposes, just as VA physicians would want to know about any other use by veteran patients of federally illegal drugs,” he said. The goal is to get a full picture of patient health, including all legal and illegal medications. Calling the updated guidance document a more open approach to marijuana use is “a mischaracterization,” he said. “VA physicians can also gather statistics and other information from veterans about their use of marijuana or other federally illegal drugs as part of understanding the effects of that drug use on their overall health. VA’s position on marijuana remains unchanged,” Cashour said. That position has been outlined multiple times in recent months by VA Secretary David Shulkin. VA doctors cannot prescribe, recommend or assist with getting medical marijuana because of federal prohibitions against the drug. Shulkin has said he is interested in looking into the possible benefits for cannabis in a range of veterans’ ailments, but pro-marijuana groups and veterans advocates have sharply criticized the department for failing to follow through on those comments with meaningful research changes. The new VA document reiterates that VA doctors cannot assist veterans in obtaining medical marijuana even in states where it is legal but also notes that “veterans must not be denied Veterans Health Administration services solely because they are participating in state-approved marijuana programs.” It also notes that possession of marijuana on VA property is a federal crime, even in states where it is legal. [Source: ArmyTimes | Leo shane III | | December 19, 2017 ++]***********************VA Medical Marijuana Update 38 ? Directive ClarificationDoctors and pharmacists at the Veterans Affairs Department have been cleared to talk about the pluses and minuses of medical marijuana use with vets who ask about the drug. The doctors will still be barred from recommending or prescribing marijuana, but under a new VA directive they will be able to "discuss with the veteran marijuana use, due to its clinical relevance to patient care, and discuss marijuana use with any veterans requesting information about marijuana." In issuing the new rule earlier this month, the VA reaffirmed its long-standing policy against marijuana use under federal laws including the Controlled Substances Act. The new rule said "providers are prohibited from completing forms or registering veterans for participation in a state-approved marijuana program." Under federal law, marijuana is still listed as a "Schedule 1" drug "with a high potential for abuse, without a currently acceptable medical use in treatment in the United States, and lacking accepted safety for use under medical supervision," according to the VA. However, at least 29 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana in some form or sanctioned its medical use. In its directive, the VA said doctors and pharmacists at the Veterans Health Administration [VHA] "should discuss with patients how their use of state-approved medical marijuana to treat medical or psychiatric symptoms or conditions may relate to the veterans participation in other clinical activities." The discussions could involve "how marijuana may impact other aspects of the overall care of the veteran such as how marijuana may interact with other medications the veteran is taking," the VA said. In addition, the doctors and pharmacists could talk to the vet on "how the use of marijuana may impact other aspects of the overall care of the veteran, such as pain management, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD], or substance use disorder treatment," the VA said. The American Legion praised the VA's new rules on marijuana on 19 DEC and renewed its call on Washington to remove marijuana from the list of Schedule 1 drugs. In a statement, the Legion said, "This updated policy will help encourage veterans using medical cannabis to more openly and fully discuss their health care options with VA medical providers." "Many states believe cannabis is a drug with medical value, and many studies, to include the recommendations of the National Academy of Medicine, support this contention," the Legion said. In a survey conducted for the Legion in August, more than 80 percent of veterans nationwide favored legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana and said they would want to have it as a potential treatment option. Eighty-three percent of veteran households surveyed said the federal government should legalize medical cannabis, and 82 percent indicated that they would want to have medical cannabis as a legal treatment option. At its national convention in Reno, Nevada, in August, the two-million-member Legion also adopted a resolution urging the removal of marijuana from the government's list of "Schedule 1" drugs, including heroin, LSD and Ecstasy, which are deemed to have no medical use. In a White House briefing in May, VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin said states allowing medical marijuana use may be providing "some evidence that this is beginning to be helpful, and we're interested in looking at that and learning from that." However, Shulkin said that "until time the federal law changes, we are not able to prescribe medical marijuana for conditions that may be helpful." [Source: | Richard Sisk | December 20, 2017 ++]***********************VA Shipping Costs ? Savings Projections Not Acted OnIf you could pay $19.19 to ship a package instead of $227.32, wouldn’t you go for the cheaper rate? That’s the question raised by Rob Barrow and Will Sands, Marine combat veterans and businessmen from Tampa who say the Department of Veterans of Affairs is spending tens of millions of dollars more than it needs to on shipping costs each year. The $19.19 rate is one of about three-dozen examples of savings projections the men have come up with as they try to sell the VA on a freight management system in wide use among private hospitals. They say they’ve run pilot programs with the VA that demonstrated cost savings of more than 45 percent. Still, VA officials say "there doesn’t appear to be a single substantive piece of evidence" that the system can save the VA money. So Barrow, a retired disabled lieutenant colonel who owns the Tampa logistics company Capture, has filed two complaints with the agency’s Office of Inspector General. Their target is the loosely regulated, one-in-five packages shipped by the VA that are not part of the agency’s prime vending contract — some half-million packages every year. Adding to Barrow’s concern is that he’s a service-disabled veteran, so companies like his are often given priority in federal contracting. Capture has benefited from this provision in the past with VA freight contracts. The flap comes as VA Secretary David Shulkin seeks to create a medical-surgical supply chain that would save $150 million. That money, Shulkin told Congress last year, would be redirected to "priority veteran programs." In his complaints to the VA inspector general, Barrow said Capture could save VA health care centers $20 million a year and the agency overall — including claims processing centers and administrative offices — $100 million a year. The system Capture offers is called OptiFreight, developed by heath care giant Cardinal Health as a way to help hospitals manage how they send and receive packages. Cardinal Health says some 2,000 hospitals ship nearly 19 million packages a year this way, saving a combined $200 million every year. The system works by both offering a bulk shipping discount through FedEx and managing each item shipped to VA at the point of purchase to ensure the user is getting the best rate possible. Capture has an agreement with Cardinal Health to provide OptiFreight services to the VA and has conducted the pilot programs at six VA health care centers, including the James A. Haley Medical Center in Tampa. The company has two contracts with the VA — one in the Washington, D.C., area that serves three centers and another in Milwaukee that serves one. In one example, Capture examined a package a VA medical center in Los Angeles paid $227.32 to ship that would have cost $19.19 under the OptiFreight program. In another example, a VA medical center in Lexington, Ky., paid $113 for a shipment that would have cost $29.66 under OptiFreight. During a two-week period in November 2015 at five VA medical centers, including Haley, the system saved more than $5,200 — 45 percent on the cost of shipping 224 packages. The Tampa Bay Times shared these results with the VA, along with recommendations from a hospital industry expert and a Cardinal Health official saying the program has the potential to save VA money. "I would recommend this because it provides visibility into freight costs and its ability to reduce freight costs," said Mike Schiller, senior director of Supply Chain of the Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management, a subsidiary of the American Hospital Association. A decade ago, Schiller instituted the OptiFreight program at the Chicago hospital where he worked and said it saved money and gave hospital officials a better view of how and what they were shipping. Added David J. Hoffman with OptiFreight Logistics: "VA doesn’t have to pay for anything. Just allow us to manage this portion of the business. This is a great opportunity to help veterans and help the VA." Still, VA officials remain skeptical. "VA is always looking for ways to utilize resources more efficiently to provide better care for Veterans and better value for taxpayers," VA spokesman Curt Cashour said in an email to the Times. "But it doesn’t benefit anyone when people make unsupported claims without providing any evidence — as is the case here." Cashour referred to the examples and support provided by Capture as "unsupported claims or decade-old hearsay/anecdotes." Haley ran a one-time demonstration trial with Capture in December 2015, he said, but the "anticipated savings and benefits didn’t materialize, so the trial was discontinued." Barrow and Sands dispute that, saying the Haley pilot, which actually began July 31, 2015, showed a savings of nearly 50 percent, more than $2,500 on 65 shipments. Cashour said it’s "impossible to compare anything" using Capture’s Haley data "because it uses list prices and Capture’s own representation of its negotiated prices, which may or may not include its fees." Those savings figures, however, are inclusive of the fees, Barrow said. Haley officials referred all questions to Cashour. In his complaints to the VA’s inspector general, Barrow questioned whether the agency is interested in saving money. The VA, he wrote, has a "complete and total lack of interest in doing any additional work that can save taxpayer money and improve the services .?.?. " [Source: Tampa Bay Times | Howard Altman | December 18, 2017 ++]***********************VA DRC Program Update 01 ? 30 Day Decision ClarificationA recent VA e-mail to veterans has the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) concerned that the Department of Veterans Affairs is promising things on behalf of the VFW, and other VSO’s. The particular segment of the e-mail in question, which relates to the brand new Decision Ready Claims (DRC) program, reads as follows:“When you file a DRC, you can get a decision on your claim in by working with an accredited Veterans Service Organization (VSO). Your VSO will help you gather and submit all relevant and required evidence so your claim is ready for VA to make a decision when you submit it.” The VFW says this is leading vets to believe that they will be getting a decision 30 days from contacting the VFW, when in reality the 30 day clock starts once the claim is submitted to the VA. The preparation process with a VSO service officer is separate, and the VFW makes no promises on how long the gathering of information will take, as it differs on an individual basis. While VFW Director of National Veterans Services Ryan Gallucci is quick to point out that he doesn’t believe it’s intentional he also acknowledges that these types of issues seem to be a recurring theme with the VA’s rollout of new programs, and one that must be fixed going forward. For more details on this issue, you can listen to the full interview with Gallucci from ConnectingVets’ Morning Briefing radio show at . [Source: | Eric Dehm | December 19, 2017 ++] ***********************VA Vet Choice Update 65 ? Program Not Functioning WellVeteran Warren Pierce is worried that vets aren’t getting the care they need. Pierce is partially covered by the VA Choice insurance program, an option for people who are 40 or more miles away from a Veterans Affairs facility or who have to wait 30 days for an appointment can seek non-VA care. But that system, patients and providers say, is difficult to navigate and hard to get reimbursed through. “I’ve spent many hours on the phone just trying to get one thing done,” said Pierce, who lives in Victor, Idaho. “I’m reasonably well-educated and I don’t give up, so I was able to deal with the system. But there are an awful lot of vets around that just don’t have that persistence, and so they aren’t getting the care that they need.” Though never in combat, Pierce qualifies for care because of high-frequency-noise-induced hearing loss, which started at a shooting range during basic training at Fort Knox in 1973. Billing offices struggle with the program, too. Teton Orthopaedics has roughly $300,000 in VA claims it hasn’t been paid for since 2015. St. John’s Medical Center has $80,000 outstanding from this year alone. The Community Counseling Center is owed roughly $2,000 in claims going back to September 2016. The director of finance and administration, Ginny Stradley, said the center has a routine: Get into the office, call the VA Choice number, put on speakerphone and start the day. “It has been incredibly difficult to work with the VA Choice,” Stradley said. “When we do follow up with them we are normally on hold an average of five hours.” VA Choice was put together — some say hastily — in 2014 after news broke that veterans were dying while on waiting lists to receive care. Many Teton Valley, Idaho, and Teton County, Wyoming, veterans could qualify for the program because the closest VA facility in Idaho is Pocatello and the closest one in Wyoming is an outpatient clinic in Afton. A third-party provider, Health Net Federal Services, is responsible for working with the VA to administer the program in Wyoming. The VA Office of Inspector General recently reported to Congress that Health Net and the other company administering care across the country have collected roughly $89 million more than they should have. The quick implementation of VA Choice is one reason the program isn’t working as smoothly as it could, employees of the VA say. “We needed to do something fast,” said John Grote, the business office chief for the VA in Sheridan. “But you basically have a huge program with a ton of money trying to use an external contractor to determine care. It got a little convoluted.” Grote’s office is responsible for coordinating care in Teton County. When Pierce went to get a colonoscopy in Rexburg, Idaho, he was told the Madison Memorial Hospital in Idaho didn’t take VA Choice patients anymore because it couldn’t get reimbursed. The hospital’s public relations officer declined to say how much money Madison Memorial was owed when it made the decision. “I don’t blame them one bit,” Pierce said. “But it’s just not right that people who are providing these services aren’t getting properly compensated, and it hurts veterans because it limits the number of providers they can go to.” Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center was also asked if it had any outstanding VA Choice payments and said it couldn’t confirm it was experiencing similar problems.Frustrated doctors -- The VA office in Sheridan confirmed that there are also some providers in Wyoming that have chosen not to take VA Choice insurance any more, but it didn’t have a list due to its changing nature, staff said. Orthopedic and spine surgeon Christopher Hills is frustrated at the amount Teton Orthopaedics is owed. He served as an orthopedic surgeon in the U.S. Army, on active duty service from 2004 to 2013, and he deeply empathizes with veterans. “I’ve seen them come off the battlefield, so I know what they’re dealing with,” he said, getting choked up. “They might have significant physical burns, but this is a burn they shouldn’t have to deal with. It’s inexcusable what they’re having to deal with after everything they’ve done and sacrificed for our country. “At some point it becomes difficult to provide free care,” Hills said. “Ultimately there will be a threshold. But we don’t know what that is.”A time-consuming effort -- The Community Counseling Center faces a similar battle in collecting funds. It can ask about only three dates of service per call, and Stradley is frequently told that the VA Choice office didn’t get a claim or that records show a claim was paid, even if it wasn’t. If a payment is outstanding for more than six months, the Counseling Center has to ask for help from clients. “It’s really time-consuming for us, but we do it,” Stradley said. “We don’t want it to be a barrier to services.” The Community Counseling Center recently received a letter from the VA Choice program saying it was aware of the difficulties. St. John Medical Center’s revenue cycle director, James Hohl, said the hospital deals with a variety of insurance plans. “But VA Choice is probably on the more difficult side, for sure,” Hohl said. “We’ve found that we do receive payment, but it takes a long time.” Last quarter, 36 patients — less than 1 percent of the hospital’s total patient flow — used the VA Choice program at St. John’s. “If this was our experience with 90 percent of our patients we probably wouldn’t be doing too hot,” Hohl said. The hospital’s fairly large team — five people are responsible for hospital billing alone and three more for the larger medical group — helps it conduct “aggressive” follow-up to get paid. Veteran and Teton County Board of Health member Joe Burke said that even though the original idea was a good one, he’s aware of the problems. “No one is getting paid,” he said. “It might just be a matter of figuring out how to do the billing. It’s a different animal they [billing offices] need to learn how to ride.” John Sherwood, commander of Jackson Hole’s American Legion Post 43, said the current program is “less useful than the system that existed before.” “You’ve just got to keep calling them and calling them and calling them,” Sherwood said.The legislative piece -- When Pierce first started having troubles with the VA Choice program, he wrote letters to his senators and congressman in Idaho. The first responses back were form letters that he called “bulls--t.” But he kept writing. Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi became vocal about a better veterans’ health care system after his office received a lot of provider complaints, including from Teton Orthopaedics. “We really want to make sure they are getting the care and access they need,” said Max D’Onofrio, Enzi’s press secretary. “This is something Sen. Enzi takes seriously.” D’Onofrio said Enzi’s office is trying to expedite the reimbursement process, but he couldn’t share details of how it was doing so. In addition, the senator is bringing up regional concerns with U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin. Enzi also called for a review of and improvements to the program on the Senate floor in October. There are three bills in Congress that propose to overhaul the VA health care system. Time is of the essence, since the VA is projected to run out of funding for the VA Choice program by the end of the year. When asked which bill might be best, Grote, of the VA office in Sheridan, said whatever “streamlines care, allows the VA to pay providers the quickest and gives vets the most flexibility.” He said his office will continue to work with providers to get them paid. Pierce hopes that by getting the word out, things will change. “I’ve always wanted to do something meaningful,” he said. “And I have to admit, I haven’t accomplished a whole lot of things like that. It’ll make me feel good and satisfy a need I have if I can help some other people out who are less fortunate.” What would that look like? “It would be satisfying if I could make a difference,” he said, “even if only a couple million dollars get paid to a few providers. That’s something to feel good about. But I’d really like it to be much more than that.” [Source: Jackson Hole News | Kylie Mohr | December 20, 2017 ++]***********************VA Vet Choice Update 66 ? Stopgap Funding Bill SignedA stopgap funding bill that President Donald Trump signed 22 DEC to avoid a government shutdown included $2.1 billion for a nearly bankrupt Department of Veterans Affairs program that allows veterans to seek medical care in the private sector. The measure was included at the insistence of VA Secretary David Shulkin, who wrote to Congress on Dec. 12 warning money for the Veterans Choice program was running low. A notice published in the Federal Register on 20 DEC stated that without congressional action the account used for the program could be depleted as soon as 2 JAN. Shulkin predicted without more funding, there would've been a "dramatic impact" on veterans' health care. The continuing resolution allows the government to remain operational through 19 JAN, at which point lawmakers will need to approve another budget deal to prevent a shutdown. Before the House voted on the four-week budget extension 21 DEC, Rep. Phil Roe (R=-TN), chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, pleaded with congressmen to approve the bill because of the provision to fund Choice. "We cannot allow the care of our veterans in the community to be jeopardized because of a lack of funding," Roe said. "A vote against a continuing resolution is a vote against funding medical care for our nation's heroes. The secretary's message is clear." This marks the second instance this year that Congress approved emergency funding for the Choice program. In mid-August, the department received $2.1 billion to keep it operational. At the time, some veterans had experienced interruptions in their medical care, and veterans' requests to receive private-sector appointments were accumulating. The cost of the Choice program runs between $200 million to $400 million each month, Shulkin wrote in his letter to Congress this month. He's attributed an increase in the program's costs to its gain in popularity. In a statement 21 DEC about the agency's achievements in 2017, Shulkin said the VA authorized 6.1 million appointments in the private sector this year. That's a 64 percent increase from the 3.7 million private-sector appointments in 2016. The unpredictability of costs is one reason that Shulkin and a bipartisan group of lawmakers has pushed for sweeping reforms to Choice and the VA's other community care programs. Shulkin had urged Congress to pass new legislation before the end of the year. Though bills have advanced through the VA committees in the House and Senate, neither chamber voted on them before leaving for holiday break. Ahead of the vote on the year-end budget deal Thursday, Sens. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) and Jon Tester (D-MT), leaders of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, went to the Senate floor to make one last plea for a vote before the new year. Their bill, the Caring for Our Veterans Act, establishes a new system for veterans to seek private-sector care and includes other provisions, such as an extension of VA caregiver benefits to veterans injured before 9-11. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the legislation would cost $54 billion for 10 years. Tester described the $2.1 billion in emergency funding approved 21 DEC as a "Band-Aid" on a program that needs major reforms. "We need a long-term solution, and if we don't get that long-term solution, we're not doing right by our veterans in this country," he said on the Senate floor. [Source: Stars and Stripes | Nikki Wentling | December 22, 2017 ++]*********************************************************************************Emergency Medical Bill Claims Update 01 ? Minnesota VA Denials Continue Records show veterans in Minnesota continue to be stuck with emergency medical bills they should not owe despite a 2014 investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that documented similar improper denials by Department of Veterans Affairs. “Was the expectation that this issue was being fixed?” KARE 11 Investigative Reporter A.J. Lagoe asked Randy Williamson, the GAO's lead investigator on the project. “That was the expectation,” Williamson replied. Beginning in June, KARE 11's continuing investigation – A Pattern of Denial – has documented how veterans are still being saddled with medical debt they should not owe, some of it even turned over to collection agencies after trips to the emergency room. KARE's findings mirror what Williamson's GAO investigation discovered years ago. “It was pretty much a pattern of a lot of errors,” Williamson told members of Congress during a 2014 hearing. The GAO found the Department of Veterans Affairs was mishandling veteran's emergency medical bill claims, improperly denying claims that should have been approved. “Some veterans were likely billed for care that VA should have paid for,” Williamson told members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. “We found that basically, VA was doing a very poor job,” Williamson recalls. “And they were erroneously denying claims.” At the request of Congress, the GAO set out to determine how well the Department of Veterans Affairs was complying with the Federal Millennium Act which requires the VA, with a few exceptions, to cover the cost of emergency care for veterans at Non-VA hospitals. Williamson and his team discovered repeated errors. “Twenty percent of the cases we looked at were wrong, were denied inappropriately,” Williamson said. “Is that an acceptable error rate?” Lagoe asked. “Heavens no,” Williamson replied. “It's not.” The GAO found that clerks were denying medical bills without a qualified clinician reviewing them. The investigation also documented cases in which the VA had given veterans pre-approval to go to an outside hospital, but later denied their claim as unauthorized. That's exactly what KARE 11 found still happening to veterans like Bob Ramsey. Bob called the VA to ask what he should do when experiencing post-surgical leg pain. He says he followed the instructions he was given to seek private emergency care. So, he expected no problems with his bill. He was wrong. The Minneapolis Non-VA Care Department sent him a letter denying his claim. “I called for advice, called to ask what they wanted me to do. They told me what to do. I did what they told me to do, and then they refused to pay,” Bob said. Bob says he tried reasoning with the VA for nearly a year. Meanwhile, his unpaid bill from Maple Grove Hospital was turned over to a collection agency. Tired of fighting with the VA, and afraid the unpaid bill would hurt his credit, Bob says he paid the bill. “I paid the bill because it was already in collections. I didn't want that hurting my credit any more than it already had,” he said. The day after KARE 11 emailed the Minneapolis VA asking questions about Bob's case, the VA did a sudden about-face. A VA official left him a voicemail promising to immediately pay the bill they had previously denied. Williamson said the GAO found denials like that were a systemic problem. “One of the hospitals that they (VA) rated in their top 10 in the country, we visited and found numerous cases where improper denials had been made,” he recalled. Why was it happening? The GAO report found VA management was only tracking how quickly claims were done. But management was not checking if they were done correctly. “They looked at the timeliness of the claim processing, but they didn't look at the appropriateness of the denials,” Williamson told KARE 11. “Nobody was checking?” Lagoe asked. “Nobody was checking,” Williamson responded. “I would say that it is a case of people not being diligent in doing their jobs, not being thorough in doing their jobs.” Despite the red flags, the GAO raised to both the Department of Veterans Affairs and Congress, VA insiders tell KARE 11 that little has changed. They say the focus remains on speed with little thought to accuracy. A current VA employee turned whistleblower said improper ER bill denials continue to happen because medical claim processors are pressured to review complicated files in just minutes. “Joe” spoke to KARE 11 on the condition that we do not use his last name. “We are accountable for speed,” Joe said. “And the faster you are, the more your performance goes up - your review does, you get a bonus.” To achieve an “exceptional” employee rating, Joe says examiners can spend, on average, less than three minutes reviewing each claim. In those few minutes, claims examiners must make a series of determinations. Is the cost covered by other insurance? Was the veteran seen for a service connected issue? Should the veteran have gone to a VA hospital instead? Or should the case be sent to a nurse to review whether it was a true emergency? Lagoe: “Do you have time to do that?” Joe: “No.” Lagoe: “Have you been doing that? Joe: “No, and that's the truth.” In fact, Joe says that to meet the performance goals, it's quicker to simply deny claims than to take the multiple steps needed to approve them.For a JUL report on the same issue WATCH: VA whistleblower exposes improper claim rejections While GAO did not specifically determine whether the VA's performance standards were causing veterans to be wrongfully denied, they did find what Williamson described as lax supervision and poor accountability. The GAO also found the wrongful denials were prompting some veterans to take dangerous risks. Fearing they might be stuck with an emergency bill the VA would not pay, veterans were by-passing the closest emergency room to drive miles to a VA facility. “One veteran with a gunshot wound had his wife drive him to a Veterans hospital a hundred miles away, rather than go to the nearest facility in the community,” Williamson said. “Why?” asked Lagoe. “Because the veteran thought he would be on the hook for the bill and he didn't want to do that,” Williamson replied. The GAO report made 12 recommendations, but Williamson told Congress back in 2014 he was concerned VA was not fully implementing them. Three years later, KARE's investigation documented continuing problems – case after case of veterans still falling victim to the VA's pattern of improper denials. “Based on what we know now, and based on some things I've heard from VA, it's not completely fixed,” Williamson said. In response to KARE 11's reporting, a different government agency is beginning yet another review of VA's emergency medical claim processing. Congressman Tim Walz (D-MN) asked the VA Inspector General to open an investigation. The Inspector General recently informed the Congressman it has launched a nationwide inquiry. [Source: NBC KARE 11 | A.J. Lagoe, Steve Eckert | December 21, 2017***********************VA Compensation & Pensions Update 10 ? Involuntary Separation Pay ImpactUnder federal law, until veterans pay back their involuntary separation pay, they can have their VA disability compensation withheld. The reason for this is due to 10 USC 1174, a federal law precluding duplication of benefits. The law requires that the VA recoup military separation benefits paid by the Department of Defense in cases where a veteran is subsequently awarded VA compensation. VA disability benefits can be withheld if a veteran receives readjustment pay, non-disability severance pay, separation pay, reservist involuntary separation pay, special separation benefits, voluntary separation pay, or disability severance pay. The VA is required to withhold some or all of a veteran’s monthly compensation until recoupment is complete. The process can take months or years to complete.[Source: U.S. Veteran Compensation Programs | December 28, 2017 ++] ?**********************VA Fraud, Waste & Abuse ? Reported 16 thru 31 DEC 2017St. Louis, MO -- A disabled veteran was indicted December 20, 2017, and accused of lying to improperly receive Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability benefits and Social Security Administration (SSA) benefits. The veteran, Mr. Donald Crangle, 57, suffered a major back injury in 1985 while on active duty with the U.S. Army, and was determined to be 10% disabled shortly after the accident. Due to increased complications from his back injury, Mr. Crangle’s disability rating was increased to 30% in 1990. In 1999 Mr. Crangle injured his back again, and the injury resulted in major back surgery. Mr. Crangle was determined to be 44% disabled after the accident, but, was able to continue working at his present job. In 2003 Mr. Crangle applied for an increase in benefits from the VA stating that he was too disabled to work. However, Mr. Crangle continued to teach at another job that netted him over $245,000 from 2009 – 2013. At the same time, Mr. Crangle racked up over $314,000 from the VA and SSA. Mr. Crangle was indicted on three counts of theft of government funds and five counts of making false statements.-o-o-O-o-o-Lakeland, MN -- The former mayor of Lakeland Robert A. Livingston pleaded guilty in federal court in St. Paul 20 DEC for making false demands against the United States. During his successful 2012 mayoral campaign in the Washington County community of Lakeland, Livingston cited his military record in a newspaper clipping, writing he has "military service as a field grade officer ....". The plea agreement said Livingston never served in the military and created "numerous false documents," including a DD-214, when he applied to the VA for health benefits and compensation. Livingston obtained $110,566.21 in medical care from the Veterans Health Administration and $27,198.66 in tax-free disability payments to which he was not entitled, according to court records. "I'm still frustrated, extremely frustrated," said Woodbury VFW member John Martin. "If this stops just one person from presenting fraudulent claims in the future I'd be happy, but I hope it prevents more than that." At last check, a sentencing date had not been set. "Bob Livingston is a good person. He has done a lot of good in his life," said Michael J. Millios, Livingston's attorney. "I ask that his privacy be respected. The judge will review the evidence in extenuation and mitigation. I ask that the public not cast judgment." After the KSTP investigation aired in September of 2016, DFL Congressman Tim Walz, who serves on the House Committee of Veterans Affairs', wrote the VA about the issue. The VA's 78 AUG response can be read at . After he learned of Livingston's guilty plea, Walz said via email, in part, "It's very unfortunate that VA benefits are a target for fraud. It makes it easier that the process that is used to verify service is antiquated …." The plea agreement indicates Livingston could face prison, a fine and restitution at sentencing. [Source: ABC Eyewitness 5 News | December 21, 2017 ++]**********************VA Compensation & Benefits? ?? ?Problem Solving Program? Q&A -- 24 & 25Question #24:? ? I am a retired E-8, 24yrs service, combat vet. I am rated 60% disabled. I receive retirement/disability pay & family dependent pay. I have been battling the VA on an Agent Orange Claim cancer for which they are denying. If approved, would this be considered a combat disability? If so, how is compensation awarded and is there any literature on this?A1:? This could be considered a combat disability that would make you eligible for CRSC. Since you are retired and above 50% disability, you should already be receiving CRDP. You cannot receive both. You have to request one or the other from DFAS. (They usually pay the one that is the highest). (AP) 4/4/2016A2:? Yes, it would be considered a combat disability. DFAS and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) manage the CRDP/CRSC Processing program (formerly known as VA Retro) to pay eligible military retirees any retroactive CRSC, CRDP and/or VA disability compensation they are owed. A retroactive payment will include any money you may have been entitled to before you received your first monthly payment. A retiree may be due funds from DFAS, the VA or from both agencies. DFAS and the VA remain in communication with each other to successfully establish and process CRDP and CRSC accounts. DFAS will audit your account to determine whether or not you are due retroactive payment. An audit of your account requires researching pay information from both DFAS and VA. If you are due any money from DFAS, you will receive it within 30-60 days of receipt of your first CRSC or CRDP monthly payment. If DFAS finds that you are also due a retroactive payment from the VA, we will forward an audit to the VA. They are responsible for paying any money they may owe you. For more information from DFAS, call toll free at 800-321-1080. Customer service representatives are available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (ET). Questions concerning disability ratings or payments due from the VA should be directed to the VA at 800-827-1000. (RJ) 4/4/2016 . -o-o-O-o-o-Question #25: How can a VA Doctor, a so called pys., tell you are fine with PTSD and they don't ask you how you cope day to day? They’re dropping my rating and now my depression is running wild and I can't sleep. I'm worried about my Family. I'm finished with this VA in Atlanta. A1: The BA cannot arbitrarily reduce your rating. First they must send you a letter saying they are proposing a reduction in compensation. The VA cannot reduce a rating based on a single exam. You must show significant improvement in your condition over time. I would suggest getting with your Specialist and see if they are willing to write a short report or enter into your progress notes your condition has not improved. This should halt a reduction in rating. (CP) 4/10/2016A2: I provide answer 1 above also, but I want to add that you never give up in frustration.? There will be times that you just want to hang it up.? I just got a response today from a DIC that we filed in 2011.? We requested a DRO hearing in 2013 and the letter today said that the VA wanted to tell the widow that they were working on the claim.? (CP)? 4/15/2016A3: I disagree with asking your Specialist to write anything for you that the VA will accept. Specialist are directed by the VAMC Admin who is directed by the VA, to not place anything in writing that supports a Claim. The VA Rater are told to ignore any written letters from VA Medical Providers when considering a rating anyway. To validate what I just said I had a medical examination using the same VA required form by a C&P Examiner (knew me but 20 mins) as well as my VA Primary Care provider (knew my medical conditions for years). They both used the same form and procedure for the examination. Both were 100 percent different. The C&P examination report was used stating one illness and the VAMC one supporting I had 9 different ones was ignored. The claim was denied. Illnesses justify compensation. (AM) 6/11/2016 -o-o-O-o-o-Problem Solving Program (PSP)Have a?question about the VA?? Need help with benefit questions?? Need answers to your compensation questions?? The USVCP Problem Solving Program (PSP) is available to get answers. Submit your question at and allow an experienced veteran(s) or VSO?to answer your question.? Your question will be sent to over 125,000+?registered?USVCP veterans, government employees, veteran organizations, and military supporters. Note that USVCP does NOT represent or warrant, and makes no claims, promises or guarantees about, the usefulness, completeness, adequacy or accuracy of any information in the answers. [Source:? USVCP |? | December 31, 2017 ++]**********************VAMC Amarillo TX ? AFGE Claims Vacancies Go Up Yet Care Goes DownMembers of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1038 stood in front of the Thomas E. Creek VA Medical Center on 15 DEC holding signs that read “VA Vacancies Go Up Yet Care Goes Down” and “Don’t Dismantle My VA” Friday morning. Theirs was the 57th protest across 26 states this year as members attempt to draw attention to what they say are 49,000 vacancies throughout the VA nationwide, which they contend creates a hazardous work atmosphere and puts patients at risk. AFGE is unaffiliated with the VA, and Amarillo VA employees rotated during the three-hour protest, participating during their unpaid breaks. According to the VA there were 35,500 vacancies nationwide as of Nov. 3. “We’ve seen a lot of people come together to really want to save the VA and raise awareness over what’s happening there right now,” said Cheston McGuire, AFGE press secretary. “About two months ago, the VA came out and said they only have 35,000 vacancies at the Veterans Health Administration — that was their response to our call to fill the 49,000 vacancies (we say are) at the VA. “We contend that the 35,000 at the VHA does not mean there are not 49,000 at the VA and that the 35,000 openings they have are still too many. They have the funding, they have the appropriations to make these hires, but they’re not making the hires and we don’t know why. “Every veteran’s organization has let us know that they want the VA, their members need the VA and don’t want to see it privatized. We know the VA offers the best level of care, we know that 92 percent of veterans want to go there — why aren’t they filling the positions they need to make it work?” McGuire said the AFGE is the largest federal union in the U.S., representing 700,000 federal employees, of which 250,000 are employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. A federal hiring freeze was announced in January, but in April the VA announced it would lift restrictions for available positions in the Veterans Benefits Administration and the Veterans Health Administration while subjecting other positions to the freeze. “(The) VA is committed to serving Veterans, but at the same time improving efficiency and reducing bureaucracy,” VA secretary Dr. David Shulkin said in an April news release. Barbara Moore, Amarillo VA chief of community and patient relations service, said that “It’s just not the same issue in Amarillo as it is in other places. “We’re certainly always looking to hire people. We compete in the community for the same people that Northwest and BSA and other health care providers are competing for.” In a prepared statement, Amarillo VA Director Michael Kiefer — who is a veteran — said the center is doing particularly well with unfilled vacancies. “The Amarillo VA Health Care System has dedicated considerable energy to ensure our staffing level meets the needs of our veteran population,” he said. “Currently, we have less than a 6 percent vacancy rate of our allotted VA employee staffing.” Kiefer said in outside health care industry, the average unfilled vacancy rate is 20 percent. Moore added that the Amarillo VA has “a physician recruiter that’s been very successful and all of our primary care provider (positions) are filled now.” Moore said those positions were filled as of this summer. “I would have to look into that,” Pearson said. “I don’t want to elaborate without knowing the facts … but they may be including physicians that are not in the front door yet…so are they treating veterans yet? No.” Moore said a recent patient satisfaction survey showed veterans are not dissatisfied with the Amarillo VA Health Care System which includes clinics in Childress, Dalhart, Lubbock and Clovis, N.M. “We recently got satisfactions scores, the most recent ones were for September and we had a 95 percent satisfaction rate (for wait times),” Moore said. “That’s up significantly from what it was two years ago.” According to accesstocare., a new patient has an average wait time of 18 days for a primary care visit at the Amarillo VA. In Childress, the average wait time is 8 days and in Lubbock it’s 14 days. Wait time information was not available for Dalhart. In Clovis, the average wait time for a primary care visit for a new patient is 25 days. AFGE president and VA employee Vance Pearson did not know how many vacancies there were in the Texas Panhandle but said the need for improved care exists. “We are an underserved medical community (and) we can do better, the veterans deserve better,” he said. “We don’t have the number of doctors here. We can’t necessarily bring in some of the specialists like we want to and a lot of the providers we’re bringing in are from outside of the local community. It seems like we’re having a tougher time with salaries and how long it takes to get in the front door and get hired.” Pearson said the AFGE is in communication with VA administrators in Amarillo and is working to speed up the hiring process. “One vacancy is a tragedy but when you have 49,000 vacancies, it’s an outrage, it’s a disgrace,” he said. “Veterans deserve better, they took care of us, they defended our country and we need to pay them back.” [Source: Amarillo Globe-News | Lisa Carr | December 15, 2017 ++]**********************Vet Deportations Update 14 ? Pardon Leads to Regaining U.S. ResidencyA Marine veteran deported to Mexico 15 years ago after he was convicted of a minor offense has won his fight to return to the United States and regain his permanent U.S. residency. Marco Chavez told The Associated Press on 18 DEC that he was looking forward to reuniting with his three sons in Iowa after missing their childhoods. He is now 45 and they range in age from 17 to 21. “One of the things I wanted to let my kids know is they did have a father and I did not plan to leave them,” said Chavez, who has been living in the border city of Tijuana. “That wasn’t part of the plan with me and my ex-wife. I just want to be there to support them. They still might have resentment but that’s understandable.” An immigration judge’s ruling last month is allowing Chavez’ return. It came after California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, pardoned Chavez. He was convicted in 1998 of animal cruelty for a dog beating but said another person was responsible. He was sentenced to two years in state prison, was released after 15 months because of good behavior and later deported. Brown said Chavez “served our country, earned a pardon and deserves to come back home.” His wife initially moved to Tijuana with their sons so they could all be together, but life was too hard for the family in the violence-plagued border city, where the schools were not as good and jobs were scarce, Chavez said. The couple divorced and she moved to Iowa with their children. He plans to meet his parents at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing in San Diego before Christmas and will live in Los Angeles with them for several months while he deals with his residency paperwork. He then will move to Iowa and try to rebuild a relationship with his children. Chavez last saw his sons when they visited him in Tijuana in 2013. Chavez was a baby when his parents took him to the United States. He served four years in the Marine Corps and was honorably discharged. After getting deported in 2002, he had to learn Spanish and find work in land that was foreign to him. “Life is possible in Mexico, but it’s not comfortable,” said Chavez, who found work as a security guard and later used his English working for a call center in Tijuana for U.S. companies. “Now I understand why everybody tries to cross by any means possible,” he said. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jennie Pasquarella said the case gives hope to other deported veterans, including two other veterans also pardoned by Brown and are in Mexico and have lawyers trying to win permission for them to return to the United States. The Tijuana-based Deported Veterans Support House says it has documented at least 301 cases of veterans being deported to some 30 countries. More than 60 of them are Mexican. [Source: The Associated Press | Julie Watson | November 19, 2017 ++]***********************GI Bill Update 245 ? Four Main Threats to Current UsersThe Post-9/11 GI Bill has provided hard-earned educational opportunities to veterans and servicemembers and their families. Recent expansions to the benefit in the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, which MOAA supported, have provided even broader opportunities for the GI bill's use, including at independent-study programs, career and technical schools, and postsecondary vocational schools. The educational benefit, however, must be used wisely to ensure that when student veterans and family members complete their educational programs, they actually are in a better circumstance. MOAA has identified four main threats.First, some schools have begun aggressively marketing to recipients of the Post-9/11 GI Bill because they want to increase their student veteran population for non-intrinsic purposes. Current law requires institutions to obtain at least 10 percent of their revenue from someplace other than federal government financial assistance. Funds from the GI bill and DoD Tuition Assistance aren't included in that definition, however. This creates a situation where a school can receive 90 percent of its revenue from federal student aid and 10 percent from DoD or VA beneficiaries, and thus a school can be 100-percent funded with federal dollars, putting all the risk of failure on taxpayers. The 10-percent GI bill loophole created an incentive for schools to aggressively pursue students using the GI bill to fill in their 10 percent of revenue, often misleading students about the value of the education they would receive. In 2012, a group of state attorneys general wrote to Congress asking for this loophole to be closed. Instead, a bill currently in Congress would eliminate the 10-percent requirement entirely and allow schools to receive 100 percent of their revenue from federal funds, regardless of the source. The bill is H.R. 4508, the PROSPER Act, otherwise known as the Higher Education Reauthorization Bill. To see what percentage of funds a school receives from the federal government, visit the office of Federal Student Aid website.Second, GI bill beneficiaries who attend schools where GI bill funds do not cover all of their tuition often acquire student loan debt they cannot later afford to pay. An October 2017 report by the U.S. Department of Education found veterans had a higher loan default rate than other first-time students, as high as 45 percent. Third, according to Department of Education data, schools student veterans tend to choose have low overall graduation rates, even though student veterans themselves have above-average graduation rates. Low overall graduation rates often are associated with lower-performing academic institutions, although that is not always the case. The U.S. Department of Education maintains a College Scorecard with detailed information about school graduation rates.Fourth, schools that accept the GI bill are not in any way screened to ensure graduating students will have positive outcomes, such as legitimate career opportunities. While current law does contain a rule requiring schools to “prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation” (20 U.S.C. 1088), it only applies to specific programs within a school and not to the school itself. The Department of Education has information about average salaries after graduation and should be consulted if students are curious about currently available data. At a hearing last week regarding the implementation of the new provisions of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, questions by many members of Congress focused on measurable outcomes because of the concern Congress has about veterans receiving the best possible education with the benefits they have earned. Rep. J. Luis Correa (D-CA) specifically mentioned he would like to see outcomes of veterans making $60,000 to $80,000 a year after completing their education with the GI bill. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) stated he wants greater scrutiny on the institutions themselves and whether they are delivering good outcomes for veterans in terms of earning potential and career opportunities, which he found more useful than mere graduation rates. While neither Congress nor the VA have settled on the right solution for ensuring the GI bill is the benefit it needs to be for veterans and their families, the debate continues, and MOAA will be engaged in the discussions to ensure your interests are represented. If you have ideas or questions about this topic, email them to legis@. [Source: MOAA Leg Up | December 22, 2017 ++]***********************GI Bill Update 246 ? New GI Bill AUG 2018 ChangesThe new Forever GI Bill signed into law by President Trump earlier this year has multiple provisions that will roll out in 2018. Among them are changes to the Post-9/11 GI Bill for Purple Heart recipients, reservists and dependents — all of which start in August.Post-9/11 Purple Heart recipients will be eligible to receive 100 percent of GI Bill benefits regardless of how long they served. This includes coverage of tuition at a public school’s in-state rate for 36 months, and books and housing stipends.There will also be scholarship funds available on a first-come, first-serve basis for GI Bill users who need a fifth year of school to complete science, technology, engineering or math programs.The Veterans Affairs Department will begin calculating housing stipends based on where a student takes the most classes — a change from current policy, which uses the ZIP code of a student’s school.If a dependent who received transferred benefits dies before using all of the benefits, the Forever GI Bill gives the service member or veteran the ability to transfer remaining benefits to another dependent. This provision will apply to all deaths since 2009.[Source: MilitaryTimes | : Natalie Gross | December 26, 2017 ++]***********************Homeless Vets Update 83 ? Rural | Hidden From View and Often IgnoredDowntown Ballston Spa, New York, is full of charming old Victorian houses. But there's one that's different from its neighbors: the Vet House. Fourteen formerly homeless veterans live there. It has a comfy frat house vibe: guitars are propped up in the corners, military flags and posters hang on the walls, the kitchen is overflowing with food. "It's cozy," says Dave, who moved in a couple weeks ago. "All the guys get along. We all cook, clean, look out for each other." Dave is a Navy veteran and doesn't want his last name used because of the stigma around homelessness and addiction. "I started to have a drinking problem when I was in the military," he explained. "About a year ago I got kicked out of my house." Then he bounced around. He lived at detox center, a rehab facility, a group home, and for a while, his brother's couch. "The only thing I had was a vehicle that my ex-roommate had signed for, and I had to get rid of that," Dave said. "I wasn't homeless homeless, but I didn't have a job, didn't have anything else going for me." Dave's problems were compounded by the fact that he wasn't living near a major city. Transitional housing for veterans is rare in rural areas, leaving most rural homeless veterans with few options. 'The bottom line is that a lot of them at times are couch surfing, and they don't have a permanent place to sleep at night," said Leigha Rosenberger, the Executive Director of the Veteran and Community Housing Coalition, the organization that runs the Vet House. "A lot times we'll find that the last materialistic item they have is a vehicle, so they'll often be sleeping in those," she said. "Or there are some encampments throughout the community where individuals are staying together in tents." Those makeshift campsites can be found throughout the rural parts of upstate New York. They're hidden in plain sight: behind the grocery store, near the train station. You have to look closely to spot the tarps and mattresses through the bare trees. Some of the campsites are piled with stuff -- hats, bottles, a bicycle. "Because it's such a challenge to count people in rural areas, and services are so spread out, I don't know that the numbers that are even out there for rural veterans are accurate," said Kathryn Monet, the Executive Director of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. Monet says low-income rural veterans often face more obstacles than their more urban counterparts. Affordable housing may be hard to find in small communities, getting to VA clinics can require a long trip, and jobs may be more scarce. That means, for many veterans, homelessness could be just one step away. Army Reservist Stephanie Maxwell, who works with the Veteran and Community Housing Coalition, has seen that many times with the former service members she encounters. And she had a taste of homelessness herself when she moved back to upstate New York a couple years ago. She had trouble finding an apartment she could afford, and she ending up couch surfing with her two kids. "I started to realize, 'Wait, this is my life! I don't have a home, I don't have a house,'" Maxwell recalled. "I get how easy it could have been for me to have been on the street." Ultimately, Maxwell got out of that cycle of couch surfing. She's found an apartment and steady work. Her advice to rural veterans who are facing homelessness: Find an organization in your community. It might be a social service agency or church. Then pick up the phone. And don't be afraid to ask for help. [Source: North Carolina Public Radio WUNC 91.5 | Sarah Harris | December 20, 2017 ++]***********************AFL Q&A 12 ? Denied VA Disability Claim AppealsQ. I still don't understand since I put an appeal for a disability.? Why does it take for a second appeal for same disability that was sent to Washington DC?-o-o-O-o-o-A1:? If you were turned down when you filed the first time, you can reapply and if you are thinking about doing it, you should go to The DAV or any of the other service groups and have them fight for you. If you still have anything from your military health records that you did not enter with your first disability push, take it with you to the Service Office. If you do not have your military health records then you need to get them as well as you 201 Personnel File. Never quit filling for your disability.? (JK)? 12/2/16A2:? You are still on the appeal process, but you appear to be at the BVA level and need to file a VA Form 9 Appeal to the Board of Veterans' Appeals.? (CP)? 12/19/16-o-o-O-o-o-If you have a question you want answered you can submit it at . Armed Forces Locator? was developed to help veterans, active duty, servicemembers,?Reservists, National Guard members and ROTC members locate old friends, current colleagues, and family members who serve or have served in the armed forces. Their mission is to provide?an opportunity for those who served to reconnect again with war buddies.? Also, locate many topics that are of interest to veterans, active duty servicemembers, and veterans organizations. [Source: | October 15, 2017 ++]***********************VA Child Care Subsidy ? H.R.95 | Caring For Our Veterans Act of 2017Legislation pending in Congress would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide short term child care for veterans receiving mental health care at its medical facilities. The bill, the Veterans Access to Child Care Act, passed the House but is awaiting action in the Senate Armed Services Committee. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), ranking member of the committee, said he would be pushing for the bill's passage and considering "all available options" such as passing it as a provision in a larger legislative package, which includes reform of the VA's Choice program, making its way through the full Senate. "We should invest in the children of our vets who often sacrifice even though they are not the ones in uniform because their parents need medical care resulting from normal illness or wounds suffered in service," Blumenthal said. If passed, the VA would provide subsidies for child care, on-site care or direct payments to service providers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill, if implemented, would cost $96 million over the next five years. The Connecticut chapter of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is soliciting input from Connecticut vets regarding the bill. A VA survey found that nearly a third of vets were interested in child care services and that more than 10 percent of veterans surveyed had to cancel or reschedule their VA appointments due to lack of child care. Jason Walton, 33, of Middletown, a single father who served in the Marines for five years, said he tries to schedule his appointments while his 5-year-old daughter is at school. The bill would mean "one less stressor" for vets, he said. Walton, who said he has a service-connected disability, has three or four appointments per month between the primary care at the VA facility in Newington and mental health services at his local Vet Center. Occasionally he's had to bring his daughter with him to appointments and said that there are issues that vets might not want to talk about in front of their children. "For veterans who are their children's primary caregiver, lack of childcare can keep them from accessing medical care at the VA. Especially for veterans with mental healthcare needs requiring regular appointments, this can have drastic consequences. The majority of veteran suicides are among those not utilizing the VA, so anything that we can do to get vets in the door can save lives,” said Steve Kennedy, Connecticut team leader for IAVA, in an emailed statement. He pointed out that child care falls disproportionately on women, so providing child care could help to close the gap between women and men using the VA. Women will make up 10 percent of the veteran population by 2020 and 9.5 percent of all VA patients, according to the VA, though Kennedy pointed out child care is not an issue exclusive to women. “We've heard from across our membership, moms, dads, and grandparents, that they would use the VA if they could bring their kids,” he said. [Source: The Day | Julia Bergman | December 17, 2017 ++] **********************VA Hospitals Update 13 ? HR.42/S.1266 | Enhancing Veterans Care Act SignedPresident Donald Trump on 20 DEC signed a bill introduced by U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe that will allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to contract with an outside nonprofit organization when investigating VA hospitals. “As a strong, outspoken advocate for our nation's veterans, I appreciate President Trump's leadership as we work together to provide our veterans with the highest level of care — they deserve no less,” Inhofe said. The bill was partly inspired by problems at VA hospitals in Oklahoma. Inhofe, a Tulsa Republican, had requested that the VA partner with the Joint Commission, a nonprofit that accredits hospitals, while investigating VA centers in Oklahoma City and Muskogee last year. Inhofe went so far as to temporarily block then-President Barack Obama's nominee for VA inspector general until being promised that would occur. The inspector general released a report on the Muskogee VA in July and on the Oklahoma City VA last month. “Our reforms have already improved patient care for our veterans, but we're not done yet,” Inhofe said. “In the coming weeks, I will work with our VA directors in Oklahoma City and Muskogee to identify our next set of priorities to ensure that Oklahoma leads the nation in veterans care.” Wade Vlosich, director of the Oklahoma City VA, said in a statement with Muskogee VA Director Mark Morgan last month that the Joint Commission review “helped to enhance the care we provide.” The Joint Commission is not without its critics, however. A Wall Street Journal investigation in September found the organization, which is financially supported by the hospital industry, is quick to hand out its gold seal of approval and hesitant to revoke the accreditation of hospitals found to have serious problems. The bipartisan Senate bill was co-sponsored by two Democrats — Sens. Bill Nelson of Florida and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire — along with Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City. The uncontroversial legislation passed the Senate by unanimous consent on 9 NOV. A companion bill, introduced by Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Westville, passed the House by a vote of 423-0 on 6 DEC. [Source: The Oklahoman | Justin Wingerter | December 20, 2017 ++]**********************TRICARE Eligibility Update 03 ? H.R.4571 | Fair Heroes Act of 2017 A bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to expand eligibility for the TRICARE program to include certain veterans entitled to benefits under the Medicare program due to conditions or injuries incurred during service in the Armed Forces and to waive the Medicare part B late enrollment penalty for such veterans, and for other purposes. This bill would benefit young, medically retired veterans who have to pay more for their health insurance because of the severity of their injuries. Many of the most severely wounded warriors qualify for both Medicare and for TRICARE. They earn TRICARE upon medical retirement, and if they cannot work for a sustained period of time, they qualify for Medicare before age 65. An existing law, which should have been changed years ago, prevents these severely wounded warriors from using their TRICARE health benefit. This past month, MOAA, WWP, and others were instrumental in getting this bipartisan legislation introduced in both the House and the Senate to increase health care opportunities for disabled veterans. The Fair Access to Insurance for Retired (FAIR) Heroes Act will allow veterans who were medically discharged to choose their health care coverage through Medicare or TRICARE. However, they are in a catch-22: If they want to pay TRICARE Prime's lower premiums, they must decline Medicare Part B. But if they decline Part B, they lose all access to TRICARE For Life health benefits. Even if the wounded warrior declines Medicare Part B and later wants to reverse this decision, they are subject to a late enrollment penalty of 10 percent a year until they reach age 65. This is on top of already higher Medicare Part B premiums. The financial impact for these individuals is great - and, keep in mind, most are younger in age, in their 20s and 30s. For example, Medicare Part B premiums total $1,608 annually, whereas TRICARE Prime would be $283 a year (for individuals). At these rates, over the course of 10 years, an injured retiree unable to work is required to pay over $13,000 more than a typical retiree - a significant amount for someone on a fixed income. This is a confusing system of health insurance coverage for this special group of retirees, many of whom are attempting to navigate the system while living with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries. The FAIR Heroes Act gives them a choice to remain on low-cost TRICARE or stay on Medicare. Many would like to choose an option that best suits them and not be penalized in future years if they choose to opt out of Medicare. [Source: MOAA Leg Up | December 22, 2017 ++]**********************REAL ID Act of 2005 ? Impact On Driver License Use as Security ID If you’re planning to fly after 22 JAN, you may not be able to use your driver’s license as a form of identification to get through security. Also, its use in accessing Federal facilities inclusive of military bases or entering nuclear power plants. That’s thanks to the REAL ID Act of 2005, which everyone in the travel industry is hoping you — and the other 719 million passengers who fly domestically every year — have heard about. The law, a counterterrorism measure that followed 9/11, calls for states to issue driver's licenses with more security features — such as scannable bar codes and digital photos. They will be required for people to board any commercial flight and enter federal facilities and military bases. Passports or other approved forms of federal identification — such as a border-crossing card, U.S. military ID, TSA Pre-Check or Global Entry card — can be used as an alternative. Other alternative ID that will be accepted by TSA is listed at . You will need this alternative ID if you live in one of 24 states that have yet to add the security measures to the driver's licenses they issue. And you may need to get a new, updated license if you live in one of the states that already offers them. Enforcement begins on 22 JAN. You can check your state’s status on the Department of Homeland Security website's interactive map at . Some states have been granted extensions to make their licenses compliant. “It’s very complicated,” admits Katy Lloyd, spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. Virginia has just been granted a REAL ID extension until Oct. 10, 2018, when the state plans to have compliant licenses ready. Until then, residents can get through security using the driver’s licenses they already have. Delays are caused at least in part by the controversy over the legislation. Its opponents include some legislators who have called it an “unfunded mandate” that is too expensive to implement. The American Civil Liberties Union considers the REAL ID Act a serious threat to Americans' civil rights that will “lead to a slippery slope of surveillance and monitoring of citizens.” In 2012 the ACLU declared “REAL ID is dead,” as states including Maine, Hawaii and Utah had passed laws prohibiting their participation in the REAL ID Act. Many states have repealed or are repealing those laws. While they are working on new compliant driver’s licenses, they also plan to offer unenhanced licenses as an option to residents. The bottom line: You don’t want to find yourself barred from flying because you didn’t realize your old-school license is no longer an acceptable form of identification. If your state doesn't have the new IDs, there is still time to get a passport or apply for another ID, says Tom Spagnola, senior vice president of supplier relations at the online travel agency CheapOair. Spagnola says airlines, not to mention airport security agents, don't want to face a slew of angry and confused travelers when enforcement begins. Many in the travel industry are working overtime to inform the public, so he's hopeful the message will get through. [Source: AARP | Christina Ianzito | October 11, 2017 ++]**********************Vet Jobs Update 228 ? Active Duty/Reservists Commercial Driver’s LicensesLawmakers have again eased rules regarding troops seeking commercial driver’s licenses, part of an ongoing effort to help veterans use their military skills for post-service jobs On 21 DEC, in pre-recess work, House lawmakers easily passed the Jobs for Our Heroes Act (H.R.2547/S.1393), which clarifies eligibility rules for active-duty service members and reservists applying for the licenses under Department of Transportation programs. The measure now heads to the White House to be signed into law. Previously, lawmakers had created a special program for veterans seeking commercial driver’s licenses, which allowed them to skip driving tests and some certification requirements if they had previous applicable experience from their time in the ranks. But those provisions — outlined in the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act in 2015 — did not include reservists who have not yet separated from the military or active-duty troops planning ahead for their post-service careers. Transportation officials created a two-year exemption to cover those groups, but the new legislation makes those changes permanent. In addition, the measure also allows more Veterans Affairs medical professionals to perform required federal health examinations for the licensing processes. Because of current rules, only a small number of VA staffers meet the requirements for administering those tests. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and one of the sponsors of the legislation said in a statement after the vote that the new bill fills an important gap for military members and the industry. “There is a shortage of people who can get a commercial driver’s license and fill these well-paying jobs,” he said. “This bill would also allow states to permanently waive license requirements for current service members and national guardsmen if they have military experience driving a comparable vehicle.” “That way, members of the military don’t have to go through the same old rigmarole twice,” he said, adding, “They get trained in the military; and then they get out; and then the civilian world ignores the fact that they have trained and been qualified in the military; and this bill fixes that.” Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA), who sponsored the measure in the House, offered similar praise for the move. “This bill has always been about crafting a common sense, bipartisan solution that provides opportunities for our veterans returning to the civilian workforce as quickly as possible while also filling much-needed positions within the trucking industry,” he said in a statement. “These kinds of seemingly small, targeted solutions may not always make the front page news, but they make a big difference in the lives of those affected,” he said. State and federal lawmakers in recent years have pushed a number of initiatives to better match military skills with civilian credentialing requirements in an effort to help veterans transition into private-sector jobs. [Source: MilitaryTimes | Leo Shane III | December 27, 2017 ++] *******************************************************************Army Secretary Update 02 ? Mark Esper's IdeasThree weeks into his new job, Army Secretary Mark Esper has some ideas for the service that will put a smile on many a soldier’s face. Esper, who graduated from West Point in 1986 and spent 21 years in the Army, told Army Times in an interview 12 DEC that he’d like to give more control back to commanders and take some of the burden of military life off of families. Within his top priorities — readiness, modernization and reform — laid out in his first letter to the force on Nov. 21, Esper said he wants “to figure out a better way to take care of families, and soldiers and the civilian workforce.”The former infantry officer spent time in the 101st Airborne Division and the 3rd Airborne Battalion Combat Team, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment — which would later become the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy. Esper remarked at how much is on a unit’s plate in the Army now, as compared with his time as a company commander in Vicenza. “I was kind of spoiled in Italy because we didn’t have, really, upper echelons of command,” he said. “So, we really got to train and do things the way we thought, as commanders, and the way my battalion commander thought.” Esper said he’d like to see that philosophy applied to the Army’s long list of mandatory training, from how soldiers learn about detaining enemy combatants to how to keep from drowning. “One of the complaints is we’re doing all this mandatory training. And when you look at the numbers, it is astounding how much it has grown over the years,” he said, comparing the experience to his own. “I felt that I had, again, great freedom to do what I wanted to do. I felt that I was trusted to train my soldiers, and I was accountable for it.” The Army already has a study underway to evaluate what’s necessary and directly related to readiness, he said. Still, some training is required by law, like the code of conduct and the Geneva Conventions, but the Army could get more creative with how it’s conducted, he added “Do you need to do that in a classroom? Or, when you’re out in the field and you have 30 minutes of down time and soldiers are eating their MREs, can you talk about, ‘OK, this is how you search a prisoner, and this is how you separate them and process them?’ ” he said. Or, in the case of a training session that’s done multiple times a year, he said, the Army should evaluate how often is really necessary. “I just go back to my experience,” he said. “I remember doing drown-proofing three times a year.” Once or twice a year, while adding some remedial help for soldiers who have a tough time, might be more efficient, he added. Esper also suggested that rather than creating a brigade-wide schedule for training, individual commanders should have some flexibility, while being held accountable if they get rid of or modify a course and then start to see issues with their soldiers. “I think, generally, the NCOs and officers in a platoon or company want to take care of their soldiers, and they understand it doesn’t run from nine to five, like in the civilian world,” he said. With all the time and money spent on developing NCOs and officers, he added, the Army should trust them to properly train their soldiers and to take responsibility if something goes wrong. “Let’s tell them what we expect them to do, not how to do it and when to do it,” Esper said. “If I can help shift the Army in that direction — and I know the chief of staff of the Army completely agrees — that would be a success.” Along those same lines, Esper cited the many permanent change of station moves his family experienced during his career as one of several reasons to consider extending assignments. “I’d like to take a hard look at why we PCS folks as often as we do,” he said. “Rather than PCS them every two years or three years, maybe it’s every six.” That way, he said, kids could stay in school longer, spouses with jobs would have more stability, and soldiers would have more down time in between deployments and moves. And the Army would spend less money packing up families and shipping them across the country or overseas. “If I could do that, one might say that you could reduce the churn on the soldier, which in turn reduces the impact on the family,” he said. That idea is still in the very early stages, he added, but he hopes to study the impact it would have on the force. [Source: ArmyTimes | Meghann Myers | December 14, 2017 ++] **********************Military Discharge Upgrade ? VA's New User-Friendly Online WizardWithout any fanfare or announcement, the Department of Veterans Affairs has launched a new online wizard to help veterans seeking to upgrade their military discharges. Available on the VA’s benefits website, the interactive questionnaire walks former service members through the upgrade process’ many steps, tailored to their particular situation. The new tutorial is especially useful for vets trying to correct or upgrade “bad paper” discharges, administered for misconduct, that bar them from enjoying many VA benefits. It comes after an August announcement that the Pentagon would ease the criteria for granting upgrades, giving veterans “a reasonable opportunity to establish the extenuating circumstances of their discharge.” “What the VA’s tool does, is it answers the most basic questions, which unfortunately, are what hold up most veterans who are seeking access to benefits that have been denied,” Kris Goldsmith, the executive director of High Ground Veterans Advocacy, told Task & Purpose. “Having it hosted at a website that directs you not just to VA appeals, but to DoD appeals, is common sense — and frankly, it should have happened a decade ago.” Veterans of all services, the tutorial says, have “a strong case for a discharge upgrade” if they can show that their separation was linked to traumatic brain injury; sexual assault or harassment during military service; sexual orientation under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy; or mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Vets plug in their branch of service, year of discharge, reason for seeking an upgrade, type of discharge and whether it was the outcome of a courts-martial. Once that info is submitted, the next page gives a rundown of what paperwork needs to be filed, how it should be submitted, and a friendly suggestion that while navigating the process, vets should reach out to their local veteran service organizations or seek legal representation. Without that kind of explicit guidance, “most people simply don’t know what to do,” Goldsmith said. Each branch has its own website for discharge upgrades, but “they’re not that user-friendly, and they certainly aren’t very proactive about ensuring that a veteran’s rights are protected.” After clicking through the prompts on his own questionnaire, Goldsmith was encouraged to see the message recommending that vets reach out to a VSO or legal counsel. “That right there is huge, because it’s a terrible, frustrating process,” said Goldsmith, who was separated from the Army with a general discharge in May 2007 — Task & Purpose detailed his story in February 2015. “I have been dealing with this myself for over 10 years now. I am an expert on this policy and it’s still tough on me, and I’m still managing my own case.” Between 2011 and 2015, nearly 92,000 service members were discharged for misconduct — more than two-thirds of whom “were diagnosed with PTSD, TBI or other conditions such as adjustment, anxiety, bipolar or substance abuse disorders within two years before leaving the service,” reported 17 MAY. A General Accountability Office report in May also concluded that individual services were inconsistent in acknowledging service-connected medical or mental health issues that may have played a role in the misconduct underlying a service member’s discharge, Task & Purpose previously reported. “What needs to be remembered is: When these people are kicked out of the military, they’re in an inherently vulnerable state,” Goldsmith said. “It’s hard enough to go through the transition with an honorable discharge and all of your benefits. When you’re accused of something like misconduct or suffering from PTSD that’s not being treated and you’re worried about staying off the street, you’re not able to retain the information that you need to get a discharge upgrade.” For veterans interested in more information on applying for a discharge upgrade, the Department of Veteran Affairs guidance can be found at . [Source: Task & Purpose | James Clark | December 22, 2017 ++]**********************Military Retirement System Update 28 ? 2018 Decision for 1.6M Service MembersAbout 1.6 million service members will have a big decision to make in 2018: stay with the traditional military retirement system or move to the new Blended Retirement System. Those service members include those who have less than 12 years of service on active duty as of Dec. 31, or less than 4,320 retirement points as a member of the Guard or Reserve. The new benefits package is called the Blended Retirement System, or the BRS, because it blends elements of the traditional 20-year, all-or-nothing pension system with some new payments, designed to give at least some retirement benefits to those who don’t stay for a full 20-year career. Currently only about 19 percent of active duty troops and 14 percent of reserve component members stay long enough to earn a full retirement. Those who are eligible to make a choice have all of 2018 to decide, but if you’re going to opt into the new system, you’re better off doing it sooner rather than later. The blended retirement system offers new matching contributions to your individual retirement account known as Thrift Savings Plan. Those payments will start immediately at the first pay period after you opt in. And once that cash is in a TSP, it belongs to the individual service member outright, regardless of when he or she separates from the military. But once you opt in to the new system, you can’t change your mind. The BRS still offers a pension after 20 years of service, but it’s about 20 percent smaller than the current system. It offers some new benefits — such as a government contribution of up to 5 percent of basic pay to the service member’s Thrift Savings Plan. Under the traditional system, service members can contribute their own money to the TSP, but there is no government match. The new system also offers a continuation pay, which is payable at 12 years of service. The services have all determined that the calculation for continuation pay will be 2.5 times the monthly basic pay for active duty; and for Guard and Reserve members that will be 0.5 times the monthly basic pay that reservists would receive if mobilized for active duty. Service members who want to stay in the traditional system don’t have to take any action and will automatically remain grandfathered under the traditional retirement system. That is except for Marines, who must register their decision either way in Marine Online at . For troops who want to opt into the BRS, you must complete mandatory training through Joint Knowledge Online, which requires a Common Access Card, or through Military OneSource which doesn’t require a CAC and allows spouses to complete the training, too at . More information, including a BRS comparison calculator, is available on the DoD Blended Retirement System site at . For active-duty members with more than 12 years of service, and reservists with more than 4,320 retirement points, there is no choice to make. They will automatically stay with the current legacy system. [Source: AirForceTimes | Karen Jowers | December 27, 2017 ++]**********************Army Handgun Update 02 ? 5000 M17s To Be Sold To PublicIt wasn't goi8ng to be ready in time for Christmas, but the exact version of the Army’s new handgun will be for sale in limited supply in just a few months. Sig Sauer plans to sell 5,000 of the M17 Modular Handgun System 9 mm pistol as early as May, said Tom Taylor, the company’s chief marketing officer.Each of the handguns will have its individual serialized number with a matching coin and certificate of authenticity, Taylor said. Sig won the Army’s 10-year, $580 million contract to provide as many as 238,000 pistols to replace the M9 Beretta 9 mm pistol, which has been the standard sidearm since the mid-1980s. Around the same time of the release of the 5,000 M17s to the public, Sig will also be producing a commercial version of the handgun. That version will have minor differences from the Army version and have an optional thumb safety. That weapon will remain in production based on consumer demand. The only differences between the commercial version and the military-issue weapon are that the commercial version will not have special coatings for parts or the anti-tampering mechanism, Taylor said. [Source: ArmyTimes | Todd Smith | December 17, 2017 ++]***********************Military Homeowners ? Market Survey ResultA survey listing the nation’s top buyer’s and seller’s markets contains good news for military owners looking to part with property out West, and those service members, particularly sailors, hoping to buy a home on the East Coast. Troops seeking to do the reverse may be in for a longer haul. The report, outlined by USA Today, judges more than prices in determining the market rankings. Other factors include the time properties spend on the market and how many houses are available in a given area. Still, the main factor is the average difference between list price and sale price for homes listed over a 12-month span ending 31 OCT. The Seattle area ranks third on the top-seller list, behind San Francisco and San Jose. Homes went for about $5,500 above listing price, per the survey, and were on the market for an average of 64 days, compared with a national average of 96 days. The market in King County, which includes downtown Seattle, is “out of control,” said Cassandra Rowley, a Realtor based in nearby Silverdale who spent six years as an enlisted sailor. “A lot of people are getting priced out, so they move over here to the [Olympic] peninsula, which is an hour away on the ferry,” said Rowley, who works frequently with military families and first-time buyers. “It’s very convenient, and it’s super-affordable. So people are spending $400,000 here and getting five times the house they would over there.” It’s also good news for military families who may be heading out of town and seeking renters. If they’re leaving a Navy installation in the Pacific Northwest to head east, they may be in even more luck. Virginia Beach, Virginia, ranks second on the top-buyer list, behind only Chicago. Next comes Philadelphia, followed by Jacksonville, Florida, whose naval air station boasts 10,000 Defense Department personnel and about 34,000 family members. Families heading to those areas may have their pick of the market, per the survey: Homes in Virginia Beach went for nearly $12,000 less than listing price and were on the market for an average of 104 days, while Jacksonville-area homes were $15,229 below list and on the market for 102 days. Those figures point to a large inventory for buyers ... but potential problems for motivated military sellers. San Antonio sits eighth on the top-buyer list; the Texas city and Virginia Beach were 1-2 in this year’s Military Times Best Places to Live list of big cities. Prepping for a move to one of these locations, or somewhere else? Go to MilitaryTime's VA Loan Center at . To obtain a quick monthly payment amount (interest + principle) on the mortgage you might be looking for go to . [Source: MilitaryTimes | Kevin Lilley | December 20, 2017 ++]***********************Military Myths & Legends ? Headstone CoinsHumans have been leaving mementos on and within the final resting places of loved ones almost from the beginning of the species. Excavations of even the earliest graves uncover goods meant to serve the deceased in the next world, such as pottery, weapons, and beads. The earliest known coins date to the late seventh century B.C., and as societies began embracing such monetary systems, the practice leaving of coins in the graves of citizens began yet another way of equipping the dear departed for the afterlife. Mythologies within certain cultures added specific purpose for coins being left with the dead. In Greek mythology, Charon, the ferryman of Hades, required payment for his services. A coin was therefore placed in the mouth of the dear departed to ensure he would ferry the deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron and into the world of the dead rather than leave him to wander the shore for a hundred years. In England and the U.S., pennies were routinely placed on the closed eyes of the dead, yet the purpose of that practice was not clear - some say it was to keep the eyes of the corpse from flying open (even though the eyes, once shut by the person laying out the body, do not reopen). In these more recent days, coins and other small items are sometimes discovered on grave markers, be they plaques resting atop the sod or tombstones erected at the head of the burial plot. These small tokens are left by visitors for no greater purpose than to indicate that someone has visited that grave. It has long been a tradition among Jews, for example, to leave a small stone or pebble atop a headstone just to show that someone who cared had stopped by. Coins, especially pennies, are favored by others who wish to demonstrate that the deceased has not been forgotten and that his loved ones still visit him. Sometimes these small remembrances convey meaning specific to the person buried in that plot. For more than twenty years, every month someone has been leaving one Campbell's Tomato Soup can and a pocketful of change on the plain black granite tombstone that marks the grave of Andy Warhol. The soup can is easy to explain, given Warhol's iconic use of that commodity in his art, but the handful of change remains a bit of a mystery. In a similar vein, visitors often leave pebbles, coins and maple leaf pins at the grave of Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, the man who replaced Canada's Red Ensign with the Maple Leaf flag. While visiting some cemeteries you may notice that headstones marking certain graves have coins on them, left by previous visitors to the grave. A coin left on a headstone or at the grave site is meant as a message to the deceased's family that someone else has visited the grave to pay respect. For Military, leaving coins of different denominations denote their relationship with the deceased. Leaving a penny at the grave means simply that you visited. A nickel indicates that you and the deceased trained at boot camp together, while a dime means you served with him in some capacity. Leaving a quarter means you were there with them when they took their last breath. The earliest reference to this practice we've found so far dates only to June 2009, when it appeared as a website post. A version now commonly circulated on e-mail appears to have been drawn from it, albeit some changes have slipped in, such as, "A buddy who served in the same outfit, or was with the deceased when he died, might leave a quarter", becoming "By leaving a quarter at the grave, you are telling the family that you were with the Fallen when he/she was killed". According to tradition, the money left at graves in national cemeteries and state veterans cemeteries is eventually collected, and the funds are put toward maintaining the cemetery or paying burial costs for indigent veterans. In the U.S., this practice became common during the Vietnam War, due to the political divide in the country over the war; leaving a coin was a more practical way to communicate that you had visited the grave than contacting the Soldier's family, which could devolve into an uncomfortable argument over politics relating to the war. Some Vietnam veterans would leave coins as a "down payment" to buy their fallen comrades a beer or play a hand of cards when they would finally be reunited. Today, military folk do sometimes leave very special remembrances at the graves of deceased servicemen: challenge coins. These tokens identify their bearers as members of units and are prized and cherished by those to whom they have been given; thus, any challenge coins found at gravesites were almost certainly left there by comrades-in-arms of the deceased. Next time you visit a cemetery, leave a coin. And now you know. [Source: Together We Served | December 2017 ++]***********************MAVNI Program Update 04 ? Another Year of Uncertainty AheadForeigners hoping to earn U.S. citizenship by serving in the U.S. military will have another year of uncertainty ahead as the Pentagon works through a backlog of applicants before deciding on the fate of a recruiting program targeting foreign nationals. The Military Accessions Vital to National Interest, or MAVNI, program allowed foreign-born recruits with vital skill sets, such as translators, to become naturalized U.S. citizens after joining the military. However, the program was frozen in July after it was found to have security flaws that left the military vulnerable to insider threats. No new recruits have been admitted since then, a defense official said on the condition of anonymity. “It is still on hold,” the official said. In October, the military announced new, more rigorous security clearance vetting standards and said recruits under the MANVI program would not be allowed to enter basic training until the security clearance review was completed and approved. The Pentagon also introduced new rules on the length of time recruits had to serve before they would qualify for a certificate of honorable service, which is a requirement for getting expedited citizenship. Previously eligibility for the certificate began after one day of service, but the change lengthens the time in service to 180 consecutive days of active duty or one year in the reserves. The freeze and new rules have been challenged in court and in October a federal judge ruled that the Pentagon had to provide the certificate of honorable service under the old rules to existing applicants. For now, the military is focused on getting security clearance and background checks complete for the recruits still in the system, however military officials have not disclosed how many recruits that includes, or provide an estimate of how long into 2018 ― or beyond ― that would take. Once all of those recruits are through the system, the Pentagon will review the program to see if it will be able to continue it, the military official said. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said he would like to save the program if possible, and several other top military leaders have spoken of its value to the force. “These programs are very important, especially as we’re looking at bringing in talent that can allow us to be more of an enabler or more of a facilitator to a force we are conducting security force assistance with,” said Command Sergeant Major John Troxell, the top enlisted adviser to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford. Troxell said that it is essential for the military to have the ability to recruit for language skills and other expertise at a time when the force is expanding operations into more countries in the fight against violent extremist groups. “Programs like MAVNI just allow us to get after that even more,” he said. [Source: ArmyTimes | Tara Copp | December 24, 2017 ++]***********************Tet Offensive ? Vietnam | Jan-Feb 1968In late January 1968, North Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong launched a massive offensive throughout South Vietnam. Hurling 84,000 personnel at South Vietnam, the communists struck 36 of the South’s 44 provincial capitals and 100 cities, including Hue in the northern part of the country, Qui Nhon in the center and Saigon in the south. Timed to coincide with a Vietnamese holiday known as Tet, the operation came to be called the Tet Offensive. It was an unmitigated tactical-military defeat for the communists that turned into a strategic-political victory – and proved to be the turning point of the warWHAT IT MEANT. What began 21 JAN, with an artillery bombardment on the U.S. Marine outpost at Khe Sanh, exploded into an all-out offensive against the whole of South Vietnam nine days later, as most Vietnamese celebrated the Tet holiday. Hanoi’s choice of Tet was no accident. “The communists had proclaimed a truce over this period,” President Johnson later recalled. But North Vietnamese commander Gen. V? Nguyên Giáp used Tet festivals and travels as cover for his audacious military-guerrilla operation. The communists suffered massive casualties and were defeated by every battlefield measure. By the end of February, 45,000 communist personnel had been killed and another 5,800 captured by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. “Tet was a military disaster for Hanoi,” historian Derek Leebaert writes in “The Fifty-Year Wound.” For Washington, it was a political disaster. Washington’s words couldn’t overcome the images flowing out of Vietnam – and worse, those words didn’t seem to reflect what was happening there. Just before Tet, LBJ’s State of the Union address provided an upbeat report on U.S. involvement in Vietnam, highlighting successful elections, noting that “the enemy has been defeated in battle after battle,” detailing how South Vietnam’s government had gained control over more cities and cheering other “marks of progress.” Similarly, not long before Tet, Gen. William Westmoreland called 1968 “an important point when the end begins to come into view.” What the commander in chief and his top general in Vietnam were saying proved jarringly out of step with what happened during Tet. In the first 48 hours of the communist offensive, 232 U.S. troops were killed and 900 wounded. In and around Saigon, the enemy seized radio stations and police stations, bombarded the airport and presidential palace, and assaulted the U.S. embassy. Wearing South Vietnamese uniforms, Viet Cong guerrillas breached the embassy’s outer walls in the predawn darkness 31 JAN and occupied parts of the embassy for six hours. The attack “stunned American and international observers, who saw images of the carnage broadcast on television as it occurred,” one battle history recounts. NBC News footage from the first day of fighting featured breathless correspondents shoving microphones into the faces of GIs in the midst of gun battles, GIs crawling for cover, GIs scrambling to retake the embassy, GIs bleeding and dying, Saigon in chaos – all transmitted into America’s living rooms. LBJ later criticized “emotional and exaggerated reporting.” Media coverage of Tet was not inaccurate, but it was incomplete – and strikingly different from coverage of World War II battles, which were equally brutal and bloody, equally chaotic and fluid. Imagine if World War II correspondents had beamed back images – virtually in real time – of the bloody beaches at Normandy and Okinawa, Allied squabbling and confusion at Sicily, the chaos and unpreparedness at Bastogne. Without filter or context, such images can have a devastating effect on public support and morale. Indeed, when the American people saw the images of communist forces laying siege to Saigon, they concluded that the commander in chief was either misleading them or out of touch. And when they absorbed the full costs of Tet – 3,895 Americans killed in what The New York Times called “the heaviest and most sustained” fighting of the war – they turned against the war. Ho Chi Minh’s primary objective was always the conquest of South Vietnam and unification of the country under communism. But his secondary target was 9,000 miles away, in Washington, D.C. “We don’t need to win military victories,” he said. “We only need to hit them until they give up and get out.” Although it was a military disaster for Ho, Tet proved to be a smashing political success; after Tet, LBJ abandoned his bid for re-election and Westmoreland was reassigned, bringing Ho closer to his primary objective. “Ho Chi Minh thinks he can win in Washington as he did in Paris,” LBJ warned in 1967. He was right about Ho, and Ho was right about his read of American politics. WHAT IT STILL MEANS. Vietnam was called the first “television war.” Tet illustrated how powerful and corrosive this new medium could be for a representative democracy at war. In an age of instantaneous communications, images matter more than body counts or battle damage assessments (BDAs), more than statistics or metrics, more than congressional testimony or Oval Office addresses. When the images don’t match the message, public support can erode rapidly. Thus, our enemies have become quite skilled at using media and media images to target the American people. Consider Iran’s humiliation of American hostages, Muammar Qaddafi’s claims that some of his children were killed and wounded by U.S. airstrikes, Iraq’s guided tour for CNN cameras of a bombed-out “baby milk plant” during the Gulf War, the beastly treatment of America’s fallen in Mogadishu, footage of snipers and IEDs killing U.S. troops in Iraq, and the beheadings and butchery livestreamed by al-Qaida and the Islamic State. In short, our enemies continue to subscribe to Ho’s shrewd distinction between military victory and political victory. Recall Osama bin Laden’s taunt: “When tens of your soldiers were killed in minor battles and one American pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu, you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you ... It was a pleasure for the heart of every Muslim ... to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut, Aden and Mogadishu.” [Source: American Legion | Alan W. Dowd | December 18, 2017 ++]***********************Diabetes Update 13 ? Vet Rate Twice That of Non-vetsMore than 20% of U.S. veterans have diabetes and 3.4% have undiagnosed diabetes, a combined figure that is more than double the diabetes rate in the overall U.S. population, according to findings published in Preventing Chronic Disease. In an analysis of five cycles of U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data conducted between 2005 and 2014, researchers also found that diabetes was most prevalent among veterans aged at least 65 years (27%), male veterans (22%) and veterans with less than 12 years of education (33.5%). Hispanic veterans had the highest prevalence of both diabetes (25.7%) and obesity (43.5%).“The available evidence strongly suggests that problems faced by U.S. veterans in this area are severe,” Ying Liu, PhD, assistant professor in the department of biostatistics and epidemiology at East Tennessee State University College of Public Health, told Endocrine Today. “Based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), diabetes in U.S. veterans was very prevalent. Disparities of diabetes also existed in U.S. veterans.” In the analysis, the unweighted sample size for 2013-2014 was 491; sample sizes ranged from 472 to 685 for each cycle between 2005 and 2012. Diabetes was defined as HbA1c at least 6.5%, fasting plasma glucose at least 126 mg/dL, 2-hour plasma glucose at least 200 mg/dL or a diagnosis of diabetes. Researchers also found that the overall prevalence trend of diabetes increased from 15.5% in 2005-2006 to 20.5% in 2013-2014 and peaked in 2009-2010 at 22.6%. Both poverty level and education were associated with the odds of having diabetes. “Unlike previously reported findings, our findings showed that the prevalence of diabetes by poverty level did not decline with increasing income, and this trend persisted over time,” the researchers wrote. “This persistence may be due to a small number of diabetes cases and some unidentified confounders.” The researchers noted that NHANES data can serve as a more appropriate resource vs. VA data when analyzing the rate of diabetes among veterans; in fiscal year 2014, more than 70% of veterans sought care outside the VA system despite being enrolled. Future investigations, the researchers wrote, should combine the nationwide data with VA data to obtain estimates that are more accurate. “Cost-effective prevention and intervention approaches are needed for U.S. veterans to lower the diabetes prevalence and ultimately improve their general health and life of quality,” Liu said. [Source: The Journals Plus | Regina Schaffer | December 14, 2017 ++]**************************************************************************************Life Expectancy Update 03 ? Down For The Second Straight Year Health researchers have some grim news for Americans: We are dying younger, and life expectancy is now down for the second straight year — something not seen in more than half a century. One undeniable culprit is the opioid epidemic, which is cutting down young adults at alarming and increasing rates, the researchers say. The numbers are “disturbing,” said Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch of the National Center for Health Statistics. The branch is part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released two reports Thursday. One focused on all causes of death and the other zeroed in on drug overdose deaths. A baby born in the United States in 2016 could expect to live 78.6 years, a decrease of more than a month from 2015 and more than two months from 2014. That’s the first two-year decline since 1962 and 1963 when spikes in flu deaths were likely to blame, Anderson said. Before 2015, the last one-year decline was in 1993 and was attributed partly to the AIDS epidemic. The declines are shockingly out of sync with a larger world in which lives are getting longer and healthier, public health experts said. “The rest of the world is improving. The rest of the world is seeing large declines in mortality and large improvements in life expectancy,” said Peter Muennig, a professor of health policy and management at Columbia University. “That’s true in rich countries and middle-income countries and generally true even in lower-income countries.” The difference between the U.S. and most of the rest of the world “is very stark,” said Jonathan Skinner, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College. Newborns in 29 countries, including Japan, Australia and Spain, had life expectancies above 80 years in 2015, according to the World Health Organization. The average global life expectancy was 71.4 and rising, according to that agency’s most recent report. So what’s going wrong with American health? At first glance, the new statistics present a paradox: Overall death rates for the nation actually fell in 2016, and so did deaths from seven of the 10 biggest killers, including cancer and heart disease. But life expectancy fell, too — because death rates ticked up in people under 65. “Every time you lose a young person, you lose many more years of life than when you lose an old person,” Skinner says. In fact, the report contains reassuring news for older Americans: If you make it to age 65, you can expect to live another 18 years if you are a man and 20.6 years if you are a woman. While most deaths still occur in older people, older people are dying at a slower rate. But fewer people are making it to 65. And the biggest killers of young people include what statisticians call “unintentional injuries” — a category that covers drug overdoses, traffic crashes and falls. Deaths from those causes rose 9.7% in 2016. A second CDC report makes it clear that drug overdoses are driving that wave of premature deaths, killing 63,600 people in 2016. The death rate from overdoses tripled from 6.1 per 100,000 people in 1999 to 19.8 in 2016. nAnd it spiked 21% from 2015 to 2016, the report says. The fatal drugs increasingly include synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, along with heroin and other opioids, the report says. The opioid epidemic is not the only explanation for falling life expectancy, Anderson said. Stalled progress on the nation’s biggest killer, heart disease, is playing a long-term role, despite a decline in deaths in 2016, he said. Everything from bad roads to bad diets to unequal use of health care contributes to the death gap between the United States and other rich countries, Muennig said. Suicides also increased in 2016, as did reported deaths from Alzheimer’s disease. The overall decline in U.S. life expectancy cannot yet be called a trend, Anderson said: “I hope it’s just a two-year thing.” But, he said, the picture is unlikely to improve if the rise in drug deaths is not stopped. “So my guess is that is that when all is said and done, we are probably going to see something similar for 2017.” [Source: USA TODAY | Kim Painter | December 21, 2017 ++]**********************Alzheimer's Update 16 ? As Populations Age, Rates SoarDegenerative?brain disease and dementia?are on the rise across all 50 U.S. states, according to the Alzheimer’s Association..” As the rate of Alzheimer’s continues to escalate, more financial stress will be placed on health care programs. The trend will also increase the need for?caregivers nationwide. An estimated 5.5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. The statistics are broken down by age and ethnicity and are listed as follows on their site.One in 10 people age 65 and older (10 percent) has Alzheimer's dementia.Almost two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer's are women.African Americans are about twice as likely to have Alzheimer's or other dementia as whites.Hispanics are about one and one-half times as likely to have Alzheimer's or other dementia as whites. Another startling figure exposed by the Alzheimer’s Association (AA) is that?“Someone in the United States develops Alzheimer's dementia every 66 seconds.” The state with the highest rate of Alzheimer’s is Alaska. Cases of the disease are projected to increase from 7,100 in 2017 to 11,000 in 2025?— an increase of 54.9 percent, reports AA. Why are rates so high there? It’s most likely due to the projected growth of Alaska’s elderly population. The older population is expected to increase to 35.6 percent by 2025; an estimated 70,900 to 110,000 people will be 65 and over. Below is a list of the 10 states that are predicted to have the highest rate increases of Alzheimer’s by 2025:1. Alaska:54.9 percent -- Alaska may have the highest rate of Alzheimer’s, but it also has the lowest mortality rate from the disease. For Alaska, the rate is 9.2 deaths per 100,000 people. The U.S. rate is 29 deaths per 100,000, which is more than triple the mortality projected for Alaska.2. Arizon:?53.8 percent -- According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Alzheimer’s disease was the eighth-leading cause of death in Arizona. Arizona’s older population, one of the largest of all states, is estimated to grow by approximately 29.1 percent by 2025.3. Nevada:?48.8 percent -- The expected increase in the older population in Nevada is 32.3 percent, which is a much higher rate than the anticipated growth of the entire country.4. Vermont:?41.7 percent -- Vermont’s older residents encompass 7.2 percent of Vermont’s population, the sixth highest among all states. The sharp increase in Alzheimer’s in Vermont is due to the large portion of people who are 75 and over.5. Utah:?40.0 percent -- It’s estimated that older residents are just 10.3 percent of the population, but are expected to increase to 33 percent by 2025.6. New Mexico:?39.5 percent -- Although lower than the national average, the estimated increase in New Mexico’s older population is 24.6 percent.7. South Carolina:?39.5 percent -- The death rate from Alzheimer’s in South Carolina is the eighth highest in the U.S. — 40.1 deaths among every 100,000 people. Medicaid cost for Alzheimer’s patients in South Carolina reached $544 million in 2017 and is estimated to climb to $793 million by 2025.8. Florida:?38.5 percent -- Florida’s older population is above average. Approximately 1 in 5 residents are 65 and older and the older population is expected to grow by 25 percent by 2025.9. Wyoming:?38.3 percent -- The older population will grow from 83,000 to an estimated 116,800 in 2025.10. Idaho:?37.5 percent -- The Medicaid cost of care for the disease is expected to soar to 47.8 percent from 2017 to 2025 in Idaho.[Source: AARP | Cheryl Bond-Nelms | November 17, 2017 ++]**********************Medicare Extra Help Program Update 03 ? Prescription Drug Payments If your prescription drug costs are outgrowing your ability to pay for your medicine, look into Medicare’s “Extra Help” program. The program helps pay for some, or most, of the costs of Medicare prescription drug coverage, depending on income. In addition, there’s no doughnut hole coverage gap that leaves you footing the bill for a larger share of the co-insurance, there’s no late enrollment penalty, and you have the chance to switch plans at any time. According to the 2018 Medicare & You Handbook, drug costs in 2018 for people who qualify will be no more than $3.35 for generics and $8.35 for brand-name drugs. You may qualify if your yearly income and “resources” or savings are below the following limits in 2017:You have Medicare Part A (Hospital Insurance) and/or Medicare Part B (Medical Insurance); and You live in one of the 50 States or the District of Columbia; and you areSingle with an annual income of less than $18,090 ($1,507.50 per month) and resources less than $13,820 per year; orMarried living with spouse with a combined annual income of less than $24,360 ($2,030) and resources less than $27,600 per year. Even if your income will be slightly higher in 2018 you should apply, because the income and resource limits are adjusted annually and will likely be somewhat higher next year. “Resources ” refers to money in checking and savings accounts, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). Don’t rule out applying just because you own your own home. Your home, car, household items, personal possessions, burial plot up to $1,500 for burial expenses per person, irrevocable burial contracts or back payments from Social Security or SSI, and life insurance policies ARE NOT counted as resources. The process involves more than just an application. If you qualify you would also need to select a drug plan. You can apply for Extra Help anytime. Visit i1020 to apply online. Call Social Security at 1-800-772-1213 Monday-Friday 7am-7pm if you need help completing this application. To get answers to questions about Extra Help and to get assistance for choosing a drug plan, call your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP). You can call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) for the number or check with your Area Agency on Aging. You also may be able to get help from your State with other Medicare costs under the Medicare Savings Programs.? By completing the above form, you will start your application process for a Medicare Savings Program. Medicare will send information to your State who will contact you to help you apply for a Medicare Savings Program unless you tell them not to when you complete this application. If you need information about Medicare Savings Programs, Medicare Prescription Drug plans or how to enroll in a plan, call?1-800-MEDICARE?(TTY?1-877-486-2048) or visit?. You also can request information about how to contact your State Health Insurance Counseling and Assistance Program (SHIP). The SHIP offers help with your Medicare questions. [Source: TSCL | Art Cooper | December 15, 2017 ++] ?**********************TRICARE Changes 2018 Update 14 ? Possible Fee RevisionA set of previously announced new fees that families of current troops will pay for Tricare services starting Jan. 1 are being recalculated -- and could be lowered -- with 17 days remaining before they are scheduled to hit. The series of major Tricare overhauls scheduled for Jan. 1 including a plan to combine Tricare Standard and Tricare Extra into a new program known as Tricare Select. All users of that program will pay flat fees for primary and specialty care instead of fees based on the percentage system used today. Troops who join the military after Jan. 1, known as "Group B," will face one set of fees, while current troops, known as "Group A" will face another. The fees set by Tricare for the families of current troops in Group A, announced in late September, are higher than the fees mandated by Congress for Group B. Currently the new fees for the families of current troops on Tricare Standard, which will become Tricare Select, are slated to be $27 for in-network primary care visits and $34 for in-network specialty visits. Tricare Select users whose service member joins Jan. 1 or thereafter will instead pay $15 for primary care or $25 for specialty care. Now that could change, a Tricare spokesperson confirmed 14 DEC. "Group A copays are being recalculated and will be released as soon as they are approved," Kevin Dwyer, confirmed in an email to . At issue is the method by which Tricare officials calculated fees for Group A, sources familiar with the subject told . Unlike the Group B fees, which were mandated by Congress as part of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, the fees for Group A were chosen by Tricare based on a calculation of the average cost of care for all users. Military family and veteran advocates, however, questioned that calculation process. Some argued that it factored in the wrong Tricare users, while others worried that it unfairly raised out of pocket costs for those who live in lower cost of living areas and, therefore, currently pay less for services. The recalculated fees will likely reduce the upcoming out-of-pocket costs for the families of current troops in the Tricare Select program, sources told , although by how much is not yet known. Officials with Tricare did not respond to requests for comment on a timeline for release of the new fees or whether or not the new calculations also affect military retirees. [Source: | Amy Bushatz | December 14, 2017 ++]**********************TRICARE Changes 2018 Update 15 ? Pharmacy CopaysOn Feb. 1, 2018, copayments for prescription drugs at TRICARE Pharmacy Home Delivery and retail pharmacies will increase. These changes are required by law and affect TRICARE beneficiaries who are not active duty service members. While retail pharmacy and home delivery copayments will increase, prescriptions filled at military pharmacies remain available at no cost. You can save the most money by filling your prescriptions at military pharmacies. “Military pharmacies and TRICARE Pharmacy Home Delivery will remain the lowest cost pharmacy option for TRICARE beneficiaries,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Ann McManis, Pharmacy Operations Division at the Defense Health Agency. Using home delivery, the copayments for a 90-day supply of generic formulary drugs will increase from $0 to $7. For brand-name formulary drugs, copayments will increase from $20 to $24, and copayments for non-formulary drugs (A drug in a therapeutic class that isn’t as clinically or cost-effective as other drugs in the same class. You pay a higher cost share for these drugs.) without a medical necessity will increase from $49 to $53. At a retail network pharmacy, copayments for a 30-day supply of generic formulary drugs will increase from $10 to $11 and from $24 to $28 for brand-name formulary drugs. In some cases, survivors of active duty service members may be eligible for lower cost-sharing amounts. TRICARE groups pharmacy drugs into three categories: generic formulary, brand-name formulary and non-formulary. You pay the least for generic formulary drugs and the most for non-formulary drugs, regardless of whether you get them from home delivery or a retail pharmacy. To see the new TRICARE pharmacy copayments, visit tricare.mil/pharmacycosts. To learn more about the TRICARE Pharmacy Program, or move your prescriptions to home delivery, visit tricare.mil/pharmacy. [Source: | Benefits Update | December 15, 2017 ++]**********************TRICARE Changes 2018 Update 16 ? Impact On Guard & ReserveA series of changes to Tricare caused by a contractor update and new legislation passed by Congress will have a major impact on current and future members of the Guard and Reserve, as well as retired Guard and reservists under age 60. The plans used by Guard and Reserve members and retirees, known as Tricare Reserve Select and Tricare Retired Reserve, require a monthly premium as well as annual deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs. The plans cost $217.51 a month for a family, or $47.82 a month per individual for currently serving members, and $1,013.36 a month for a family or $403.81 per individual for retirees. Those users pay up to $300 in annual deductibles per family, plus additional out-of-pocket costs until they hit their annual maximum, known as a "catastrophic cap." That cap is $1,000 for currently serving families, and $3,000 for retirees. But starting in 2018, all users will see a change in out-of-pocket costs as well as how service fees are calculated, while some will also see a change in where they send their monthly premiums.Fast Facts:Tricare region borders and managing contractors are changing Jan. 1.All Tricare Reserve Select and Tricare Retired Reserve users will see point-of-service fee changes.All Tricare Reserve Select and Tricare Retired Reserve users will see monthly premium changes.Tricare Retired Reserve users' annual out-of-pocket cap will increase from $3,000 to $3,500. To read how the changes impact other users, including active-duty families and retirees refer to . Increases To Monthly Premiums Monthly premiums for Tricare Reserve Select and Tricare Retiree typically change each year. In 2018, those fees will increase to $221.38 monthly for families on Tricare Reserve Select, but go down slightly for individuals to $46.09. For those on Tricare Retired Reserve, monthly premiums for a family will increase to $1,038.31 and $431.35 for an individual.Update Monthly Premium Payment Information Starting Jan. 1, a regular Tricare contract update is ushering in changes to Tricare's regions and contractors. Rather than the three-region system used today, Tricare will divide into two regions -- Tricare East and West. Tricare East will be managed by Humana Military. Tricare West will be managed by Health Net Federal Service. That means all Tricare Reserve Select and Tricare Retiree users outside the current Tricare South region will have a new managing contractor starting 1 JAN -- and must update their monthly payment information or risk losing coverage. Users in the western U.S. under HealthNet must update their information by Dec. 20, while Humana users in the eastern U.S. have until Dec. 24, the notices state. To read more refer to Increase Annual Cap For Retirees -- Right now, Tricare Retired Reserve users pay a maximum of $3,000 for care out-of-pocket each year. Starting on Jan. 1, however, that max will increase to $3,500. The annual cap for Tricare Reserve Select users will remain $1,000.Flat-Rate Out-Of-Pocket Costs Thanks to a change in how point-of-service charges are calculated, some users may see higher out-of-pocket fees in the new year, while others will see fees lowered. Currently, those costs are based on a "percentage of allowable charges" system predicated on a variety of factors, such as region, type of doctor and type of appointment. Going forward, however, Tricare is moving to a flat-rate system based on average costs across the system. That means while some users will pay less at appointments, others will pay more. Starting in January, Tricare Reserve Select users will pay $15 per visit for in-network primary care and $25 per visit for in-network specialty care until they hit their cap. In-network emergency room visits will run $40, and in-network urgent care use will cost $20. Retired Reserve users will pay $25 per visit for in-network primary care; $40 for in-network specialty care; $80 for in-network emergency room use; and $40 for in-network urgent care. All other fees are available on Tricare's website.[Source: | Amy Bushatz | December 19. 2017 ++]**********************TRICARE West ? Prime User's Need to Check Their Payment AllotmentsAllotments for Tricare payments in Tricare West have not been stopped, according to Tricare officials, in response to a report from a retiree in New Mexico whose retirement pay said otherwise. “We’ve had isolated cases of beneficiaries receiving incorrect notifications that are being resolved, but have had no reports of widespread issues,” a Tricare official said. “We’re working to prevent any additional incidents of misinformation.” A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel in New Mexico said he checked his retiree account statement 20 DEC and discovered his retirement pay didn’t include the usual allotment to pay for his Tricare Prime coverage. That deduction from his retired pay “has shown for the last 14 years that I’ve been retired,” he said in an email to Military Times. He made calls to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and to the current contractor, UnitedHealthcare. UnitedHealthcare officials told him, he said, that they stopped his allotment after the payment on 1 DEC, which paid for his Tricare Prime coverage for December, and that he would have to call the new Tricare West contractor, Health Net Federal Services [], to make arrangements for payment. Health Net takes over the contract on 1 JAN and doesn’t have the authority to make changes to allotments until that time, he was told. So he would have to make alternative arrangements for his January payment, such as paying by check or credit card, before restarting his allotment for the February payment. There would be a 30-day grace period, he was told, but coverage could be cancelled after that grace period, if the premium were not paid. He received no notification of the allotment being cancelled for January, he said, finding out only because he checked his retirement statement. “If someone were not aware of their responsibility, and failed to make payment [before] January 30, their coverage is cancelled,” he said. This comes less than three weeks after letters were mistakenly sent to an unknown number of military retirees in the current Tricare North region about paying their Tricare Prime premiums electronically from their bank account or credit card, even though many of those retirees were paying by allotment from their retirement pay. The letter warned the beneficiaries of a possible “interruption” in their health care benefits if the information wasn’t received. The mistake came from Humana Military, the contractor that takes over Tricare East on Jan. 1. On that date, Tricare North and South regions combine into Tricare East. Some retirees in Tricare North have reported receiving the corrected letters, which include an apology from Humana Military. “Snafus are to be expected in any transition, despite assurances by both the Defense Health Agency and the contractors that ‘we’ve got this under control,’ “ said Joyce Raezer, executive director of the National Military Family Association, noting that about two-thirds of Tricare beneficiaries are getting a new contractor during this transition. The two contractors are both “experienced contractors who understand Tricare,” she said, but their normal transition challenges are complicated by the stand-up of all the new benefit changes mandated by Congress, many of which also take effect 1 JAN. The time frame for everything has also been constricted because of the changes, she said. “We are saddened that the first communication retirees are receiving from their new contractors is about payment and not about how those contractors will serve beneficiaries,” she said. “We would hope the contractors and [the Defense Department] would do all they can to minimize disruptions that will occur under a transition, but, when the inevitable hiccup occurs, we hope they are up front about the problem and the fix.” [Source: AtmyTimes | Karen Jowers | December 22, 2017 ++]**********************Medical Breakthroughs ? Some 2017 AdvancementsPioneering drugs that remedy once-intractable diseases; clever products that make everyday living easier for people with injury or illness; innovative technologies that provide relief at a touch of a button — by all measures, 2017 has been a year of astounding health care advancements. Here are some of the ways medical trailblazers and researchers are creating fresh possibilities for you and your family. Sickle Cell Pain -- Years ago a clinical trial of Endari (L-glutamine) was held in which the drug was shown to reduce the frequency and intensity of pain episodes. The FDA approved the medication in July, according to developer Emmaus Life Sciences. Breathe More Easily -- Those suffering from obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and emphysema who have to use oxygen cannula can now utilize Oxy-View eyeglass frames, which conceal the tubes to their nose. This device can help the almost 16 million Americans with COPD get the oxygen they need without embarrassment.Heal your liver -- Treatment of hepatitis C has exploded in the past five years. "Until about 2011, we could cure only half the people we treated. Now there are seven or eight FDA-approved designer drugs [such as Harvoni] that allow us to cure 100 percent," according to Adrian M. Di Bisceglie, M.D., chairman and professor of internal medicine, and chief of hepatology at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine. "We do genetic testing on the virus to determine which of the six strains a patient has, which helps us choose precisely the right antiviral agent. We eradicate the disease, and the liver can start to heal." Now the goal is to find the 3.2 million people who are infected, Bisceglie says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all boomers — born 1945 to 1965 — get screened. In other good liver news, modern transplantation has been a completely transformational therapy. "You can take patients who are nearly dead — weeks to live — put a new liver in them, and within a day or two they’re new people, walking and talking, having new life," Bisceglie says. —Lung Cancer -- Drugs are under rapid development that can reverse the progress of lung cancer dramatically. According to Norman H. Edelman, M.D., senior scientific adviser for the American Lung Association. "We no longer say, 'You have lung cancer. Here are the drugs we use.' We examine your cancer and can tailor the drugs to the genetic mutations in your particular tumor." Another exciting advancement is the approval of checkpoint inhibitor drugs such as nivolumab, which allow your immune system to fight your own cancer. "These drugs are under rapid development, are becoming increasingly effective and can reverse the progress of the disease dramatically," Edelman says. In the next five to 10 years, we will see breakthroughs for personalized medicine in all of lung disease. "We now understand that asthma is not one thing but a collection of things. We’ve identified telltale cells in your blood and sputum that indicate whether your asthma will respond to one drug or another," Edelman says. "So we have a new class of monoclonal antibody drugs that allows us to treat the 5 to 10 percent of people with persistent, hard-to-control asthma. We expect this sort of personalized medicine to extend to most other lung diseases." —Selene YeagerCardiac CareThe discovery of PCSK9 inhibitors — a new class of injectable drugs that switch off one of the genes responsible for elevated cholesterol — was a blockbuster in the heart field, according to Steven Houser, research scientist and immediate past president of the American Heart Association. "For folks who have mutations in this pathway, this development is a godsend. The treatments are currently quite expensive, so use by the general public could be limited. But every company I know is working on drugs for that pathway. They’ll be here in the next five years, and this will have a big impact." Regeneration is the holy grail of researchers who study cardiac injury and repair, Houser says. "Researchers are testing four or five different flavors of stem cells in preclinical models to see if they reduce the damage of a heart attack. If any of them do, people will fare way better following an incident. Scientists across the world are investigating stem cells to regenerate heart tissue. I’m pretty confident that in the next 10 years, we’ll have some regenerative therapies." —Selene YeagerAnother breakthrough for heart care could impact the hundreds of thousands of Americans who receive pacemakers for heart irregularities each year. Last year a new device called the Micra Transcatheter Pacing System was approved by the FDA. It reduces infection risks, is 93 percent smaller than a conventional pacemaker, is implanted into the heart muscle through a catheter and has no wires. —Sari HarrarBone Marrow Transplants -- These could become easier to perform if doctors use a patient’s own blood stem cells. “Our goal is to make everyone’s cells amenable to self-donation,” says George Daley, a stem cell biologist and dean of the faculty of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has grown the world’s first man-made human blood stem cells in his lab; these have the potential to grow into all kinds of blood cells. Allergies and Immunodeficiency -- Biologics could be the way of the future for treating allergies. "Typically, we treat the symptoms of allergic diseases by targeting the elevated chemicals that cause them, like using antihistamines to lower histamine levels," says Olajumoke O. Fadugba, M.D., director of the Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Training Program at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia. "But now we can also use biologics — antibodies, such as Xolair, that block the molecules that cause the response. These are dramatically improving the lives of people with hard-to-treat allergic asthma, eczema and other allergic diseases." In another five to 10 years, we could see breakthroughs in gene therapy for immunodeficiency diseases. "Currently we run a risk of curing one disease — the immunodeficiency — and inadvertently causing another — cancer. That technology will be better perfected in the years to come," Fadugba says. —Selene YeagerTreating Pain -- When cartilage in joints is worn through, it allows bones to rub against each other causing pain. A new device (Pain Quell) is available to treat the pain and is a means of holding off joint (hip) replacement surgery. Quell is a strap placed around the calf near the knee. By electrically stimulating a bundle of nerves there, it can relieve pain anywhere in the body. It’s basically telling your brain, ‘You’re really not feeling this pain, so let it go. Companies are also developing pain remedies that use headsets to immerse people in virtual worlds. In clinical trials and studies, patients said they felt a 24 percent pain reduction while virtually throwing balls at animated bears and 60 percent less pain while floating through a wintry landscape and lobbing snowballs. For some, pain relief lasted a day after using the headset.Soothe Digestion Pain -- There have been tremendous advances in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, according to Fabio Cominelli, M.D., director of the Digestive Health Research Institute at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "Biological therapies and new drugs provide improvement in quality of life and can put people in permanent remission. There may be 3 million people with IBD in the U.S., and it often occurs between ages 55 and 60." Research into the gut microbiome has provided a host of possibilities, not only in digestive diseases but also in conditions such as asthma and diabetes. "We are studying how the gut can affect the brain, as well as how the intestine can affect skin diseases," Cominelli says. Healthy Teeth For Life -- For those that dread the dentist's chair — have hope. "We are moving toward smart, multifunctional filling materials for cavities," says Thomas Hart, D.D.S., director of the American Dental Association Foundation’s Volpe Research Center. "Instead of lasting eight to 10 years, as tooth-colored composite fillings currently do, they’ll last perhaps 30 years. They’ll also be self-healing, so if a filling crack develops, a little capsule of material will open to seal it. This may be available in as soon as five years." [Source: AARP Magazine | October 2017 ++]**********************Military Retired Pay?Forfeiture ? How To Avoid ItDid you know that The Emoluments Clause is a Constitutional restriction that prohibits a person “holding any office of profit or trust” in the federal government from accepting any gift, emolument, office, or title of any kind from any king, prince, or foreign state without the consent of Congress. (i.e. U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 8).? This provision may affect foreign employment of retired uniformed service personnel (RUSP), both officer and enlisted.? As interpreted, the Emoluments Clause prohibits receipt of consulting fees, gifts, travel expenses, honoraria, or salary by current civilian Federal employees.? It also applies to members of the uniformed services including active-duty, reserve, and retired personnel unless Congressional consent is first obtained.? The focus of this article is on the RUSP. To avoid forfeiture, those potentially impacted should be aware of the information provided in the attachment to this Bulletin titled, 'Military Retired Pay Forfeiture'.? For obtaining consent the attachment provides the following necessary information:When and From Whom Is Consent RequiredHow to Obtain ApprovalWhat To Include In Request For Approval[Source:? wayneljohnson@ | Commander Wayne L. Johnson, JAGC, Navy (Retired), Alexandria, VA?| December 2017 ++]**********************COLA 2017 Update 06 ? Fiscal Year 2018 AdjustmentsThe Office of The Assistant Secretary Of Defense's memorandum and attachments provided detailed guidance regarding Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLAs) and other computational procedures applicable to military retired and retainer pay and survivor annuities. It specifies COLAs for retired and retainer pay, survivor annuities, and premium determinations effective December 1, 2017, unless specified otherwise. These COLAs reflect the required adjustment for cost-of-living as measured by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers for the four quarters ending with the third calendar quarter of 2017 (July, August, and September 2017). The following Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLAs) are effective December 1, 2017, based on the increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) through the third quarter calendar year 2017. The term "retired pay" includes retainer pay and the term "members" includes former members.COLAs for Retired Pay1. The retired pay COLA for those who first became a member of a Uniformed Service before September 8, 1980, is specified according to the effective date of their retirement, as follows: Retired Pay Based on Rates of Pay Effective Percent Increase 10 U.S.C. Authority Before January 1, 2017 2.0 percent 1401a(b)(2) January 1 – December 31, 2017 1.8 percent 1401a(c) 2. The retired pay COLA for those who first became a member of a Uniformed Service on or after September 8, 1980, is specified according to the effective date of their retirement, as follows: Retirement Effective: Percent Increase 10 U.S.C. Authority Before January 1, 2017 2.0 percent 1401a(b)(2) January 1 - March 31, 2017 1.8 percent 1401a(d) April 1 - June 30, 2017 1.0 percent 1401a(d) July 1 - September 30, 2017 0.4 percent 1401a(d) October 1 - December 31, 2017 0.0 percent 1401a(d) 3. The retired pay COLA for those who first became a member of a Uniformed Service on or after August 1, 1986, and also elected to receive a career status bonus under the provisions of section 354 of title 37 United States Code is specified according to the date of their retirement, as follows: Retirement Effective Percent Increase 10 U.S.C. Authority Before January 1, 2017 1.0 percent 1401a(e) January 1 - March 31, 2017 1.0 percent 1401a(e) April 1 - June 30, 2017 0.5 percent 1401a(e) July 1 - September 30, 2017 0.2 percent 1401a(e) October 1 - December 31, 2017 0.0 percent 1401a(e) 2 COLAs for Survivor Annuities 4. Retired Serviceman's Family Protection Plan annuities payable on December 1, 2017, under the provisions of subchapter I of chapter 73, title 10, United States Code, to the spouse or child of a member who died on or before March 20, 1974 will be increased by 2.0 percent (ref: 10 U.S.C. 1434 (e)). 5. Annuities under the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) and Reserve Component Survivor Benefit Plan (RCSBP) under the provisions of subchapter II of chapter 73, title 10, United States Code, will be increased by the same percentage specified in paragraphs 1, 2, or 3 above by which the retired pay of the person providing the annuity would have been increased at such time if the person were alive and otherwise entitled to such pay. (ref: 10 U.S.C. 1451 (g)). 6. COLAs for supplemental annuities paid to certain low income widows of members who were deceased before November 1, 1953 will be increased 2.0 percent (ref: Public Law 100- 456, section 653(c)). 7. Annuities for Certain Military Surviving Spouses (ACMSS) payable monthly under the provisions of section 644, Public Law 105-85, November 18, 1997, will be increased 2.0 percent from $250.78 to $255.80 effective December 1, 2017. (ref: P.L. 105-85, sec 644). Increase in the SBP Low-Cost Premium Threshold8. Previous amounts with respect to which the 2.5 percent factor of the SBP premium (cost) formula apply will be adjusted effective December 1, 2017, in conjunction with the adjustments in retired pay made under the provisions of section 1401a of title 10, United States Code (ref: 10 U.S.C. 1452(a)(4)(B)). The Defense Finance and Accounting Service will perform necessary calculations to determine actual premiums based on the individual circumstances of each case. 9. The amount with respect to which the 2.5 percent factor of the SBP premium (cost) is applied will be increased 2.4 percent effective January 1, 2018, from $803 to $822. The threshold premium is $20.55. Therefore, the Low-Cost Threshold premium is $20.55 plus 10% of the difference between retired pay and the threshold amount. The breakeven base amount is $1,761.43. (ref: 10 U.S.C. 1452(a)(4)(A)).[Source: NCOAdvocate | December 19, 2017 ++]***********************Social Security Reduced Benefits Update 03 ? Working While CollectingAre you collecting Social Security, but also thinking about getting a job? Before you do, know the drawbacks of working while collecting benefits. It’s perfectly legal to work while taking Social Security benefits. But it’s not always worth it financially. MoneyTalksNews talked with a Social Security expert — Webster Phillips, senior policy analyst at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare — who explained the rules. It’s important to know them before claiming Social Security so you can see what you’re getting into. When it comes to claiming Social Security early, know the following:Claiming earlier in life can hurt you. The younger you are when claiming benefits, the smaller your monthly check will be.Benefits typically remain fixed. Once you claim Social Security, you’re generally stuck with that same monthly amount — except for cost-of-living increases — for life.You might regret the decision. Many American workers who get Social Security claim their benefits as soon as possible, at age 62. But depending on your health and the work you do, 62 can be too young to retire. Many people want to or need to keep working after applying for Social Security. Also, some retire, and then return to work — or even retire and return to work several times.You could lose moneyDepending on how much you earn, you risk losing some or most of your Social Security check if you collect benefits and work before what the Social Security Administration calls “full retirement age” (FRA). Your FRA is 66 if you were born between 1943 and 1954. For those born in 1955 and later, it increases gradually until reaching age 67 for those born in 1960 or later. When you claim benefits before your FRA, you’ll get less Social Security than by waiting until your FRA. The Social Security Administration can help you determine your FRA. We asked Phillips how going in and out of work — or staying on at work — affects a worker’s Social Security benefit checks. Phillips previously worked for the Social Security Administration for 31 years. He has advice if you aren’t yet at FRA: Before applying for Social Security benefits, estimate how much you’ll earn from work, and look into Social Security’s rules if you intend to work. Special rules apply for workers collecting benefits before their FRA. Know that:There’s no penalty — no matter how much you earn — for working while taking benefits after your full retirement age. Once you hit FRA, you can keep 100 percent of what you earn plus all your Social Security benefits. The Social Security Administration website has a calculator to help you find your FRA.If you work while taking benefits before your full retirement age, you may need to repay part of your Social Security checks during that period.Under the rules as updated for 2018, if you work before reaching your FRA:You can earn up to $17,040 and keep every penny of your Social Security benefits — no penalty.For every $2 you earn over $17,040, you must repay $1 to Social Security.In the year you reach full retirement age, the rules aren’t as strict. So in 2018, those who reach full retirement age during the year can earn up to $45,360 before the penalty kicks in, and the rate of the penalty is lower. You repay $1 for every $3 earned over $45,360 in the months before your birthday month. Starting with the month you reach FRA, the penalty for working ends and you receive 100 percent of your benefits check. (Example: If you turn 66 on April 23, 2018, you would pay $1 on every $3 earned in January, February and March in excess of the $45,360 limit. Beginning with April, the penalty stops.)Don’t be too sad about the money taken from your Social Security checks for the penalties described above. You’ll get it back. The Social Security Administration explains: It is important to note that any benefits withheld while you continue to work are not “lost.” Once you reach NRA (normal retirement age), your monthly benefit will be increased permanently to account for the months in which benefits were withheld.Figure out if you’d pay a penalty, and how muchPhillips emphasizes the importance of planning so you know the effect working will have on your Social Security benefits before you start taking them. To estimate whether you’d pay a penalty and how much you’d owe, use the SSA’s Retirement Earnings Test Calculator. Whether it makes sense to start claiming Social Security before your FRA depends on the size of your benefit checks and the amount you plan to earn. For purposes of illustration, suppose you expect to earn around $60,000 in 2018. Here’s how to calculate the effect on your benefit checks. (Or, make an appointment at your local Social Security office, where they’ll use a computer program to do the calculations.):Subtract $17,040 from $60,000 to find the amount on which you’d pay a penalty: $42,960.Divide $42,960 by 2 (the penalty is $1 for every $2 earned) for your annual penalty: $21,480.Divide $21,480 by 12 months to find your monthly penalty: $1,790. Your earnings and benefits will vary from this example, of course, so it’s important to run your own numbers. The calculator above makes it easy.Boost your Social Security checks by workingOn the bright side, regardless of your age, working while collecting benefits might help you increase the size of your monthly benefits. There are two ways to do this:Grow your benefit pool: Your Social Security benefit is based on your earnings in the highest-paid 35 years of your work history. If you have not worked for a total of 35 years, your nonworking years count at $0 in calculating your benefits. Continuing to work and taking Social Security when you are older can increase your benefits if you replace lower-earning years with higher-earning years. “If you are filling in a zero, the increase that results from your earnings late in your career can be pretty significant,” Phillips says. And even if you have already worked 35 years or more, your pool of benefits can grow if you replace lower-earning years with higher-earning years.Recalculation: If you worked while claiming Social Security early, once you reach full retirement age your benefits will be recalculated. The penalties you paid are put back into your checks to make them higher. Every full month’s worth of benefits lost to penalties leads to an increase in your future benefits. Read Social Security’s pamphlet at titled “How Work Affects Your Benefits” to learn the details. Or make an appointment to talk with a benefits adviser at your local Social Security office. Contact the Social Security office nearest you by looking it up at the Social Security Administration website . [Source: MoneyTalksNews | Marilyn Lewis | December 14, 2017 ++]**********************VA Loan Limits ? 2018The Federal Housing Finance Agency recently released its 2018 maximum conforming loan limits ― figures that help dictate the maximum VA loan guaranty amounts across the country. “Help” is a key word here, as the new loan limit across much of the country ― $453,100, up from $424,100 in 2017 ― is not as ironclad as it may appear. The loan limit only applies to what VA will guarantee; it does not mean veterans can’t borrow more than that amount to buy a house. It doesn’t even mean VA can’t be part of a loan that exceeds the limit ― VA can still guarantee a portion of the loan, though the rest may require a down payment.2018 Conforming Loan Limits The above map is an indicator of what the loan limit is by county across the United states. It doesn’t include Alaska, which has a higher limit than the bulk of the nation at $679,650. Same goes for Hawaii, where $679,650 is the lowest figure and Honolulu ($721,050) and Kauai ($713,000) counties check in higher. Go to for the entire loan-limit breakdown in both PDF and Microsoft Excel format if you are not an expert on identifying U.S. counties by shape Some other areas where veterans will be able to borrow more include:Portions of the Washington, D.C., metro area, stretching down the Virginia coast.A wide swath of California coastline, from San Francisco to San Diego.Areas near New York, Boston, Denver and other major cities. These limits do not apply to VA-backed Interest Rate Reduction Refinancing Loans (IRRRL), which can be used to refinance properties bought using a VA loan. Learn more about VA loans, and see updated rates, at VA Loan Center . [Source: MilitaryTimes | Kevin Lilley | December 19, 2017 ++] ?**********************DFAS myPay System Update 18 ? Get Ready for 2017 Tax Season!Tax season is a busy time. As you prepare for doing your taxes, here are some tools and resources DFAS provides to make it easier for you.? The best way to prepare is to use?myPay?to get all of the information you need. Here are some helpful tips for using myPay, as well as for getting your IRS Form 1099R in other ways.Get your 1099R and pay information 24/7 in?myPay The fastest and most secure way to obtain a copy of your 1099R is through?myPay. Retirees and annuitants can log in to?myPay, and print a 1099R from the comfort of their home. Instructions are at: . If you cannot access your?myPay?account, here is how you can get access:How to request a temporary passwordGo to Click “Forgot or Need a Password?”Enter your Social Security Number and click the “Yes” button on the bottom right.Choose “mail to my address of record with Military Retired” and click “Send me a Password.” Or, if you have a valid email address in?myPay, you can have it emailed.If you don’t receive the temporary passwordYou should receive your temporary password in 10 business days by mail or two hours by email. If you don’t, you need to update your mailing address.How to create a permanent password and Login IDOnce you receive your temporary password, you should return to?myPay.? If you have never accessed myPay,?click “Create an Account.” If you are reactivating your account, please see “How to Reactivate an Account,” below.Enter your Social Security Number and temporary password and click “Accept/Submit.”Create a permanent Login ID and password.Select eight security questions that you can answer later if you need to reset your password. Click “Submit Questions.”Answer each question and click “Submit Answers.”If you do not have an email address on record, add one.Select “Main” in the upper right corner to use?myPay.How to reactivate an accountOnce you receive your temporary password, return to?myPay.Log into?myPay?using your Login ID and your new temporary password.Create a new permanent password.Select “Main” in the upper right corner to use?myPay.Additional ways to get your 1099R1. If you are not on?myPay?and do not want to go through the process of getting a password, there are still self-service options to get or replace an IRS Form 1099R. If your mailing address on file with DFAS is current, you can get a copy of your 1099R through our telephone self-service option. To use telephone self-service:Call 800-321-1080Select option “1” for Self-ServeSelect option “1” if you are a Retiree or option “2” if you are an annuitantEnter your Social Security Number when promptedYour 1099R should be in the mail within 7-10 business days to the address we have on record.2. If the address you have on file with DFAS is out of date and you are not a?myPay?user, you can get your 1099R sent to an updated address by submitting your request online. You can request your 1099R be sent either to your current address or to a new address using an online form. Plus, you can request prior year 1099Rs. You will receive your 1099R in the mail in seven to ten business days. Find instructions at: . If you prefer traditional mail, you can send us a written request by fax or mail, but please make sure you leave time for processing. It takes up to 30 days to process requests received by fax or mail. Find instructions at:?. Members with unique situations can speak directly to one of our customer care representatives. Depending on call volume, you may have to wait on hold while we assist other customers. For more information, check out: .[Source: DFAS Retiree Newsletter | Dec 2017 ++]**********************SBP Premium Update 01 ? Deductions from CRSCIf you receive Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) and have the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), you will see a change in your net pay and statements starting in April of 2018. ? Beginning with the SBP premiums due in April of 2018, DFAS will start deducting SBP premiums from CRSC when retired pay is not sufficient to cover the full amount of the premiums. This new deduction is due to a change in the law which requires DFAS to deduct SBP premiums from CRSC. This change affects retirees who receive CRSC and currently pay SBP premiums via direct remittance. Retirees who currently have SBP premiums deducted from their Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) pay will not be affected. This change will benefit retirees and their survivors by preventing a debt when a retiree forgets to pay the SBP premiums directly. When SBP premiums are not paid during a retiree’s lifetime, it creates a debt which must be repaid from the SBP annuity a survivor receives. DFAS will begin deducting SBP premiums from the April CRSC entitlement (paid on 1 MAY) for SBP premiums due in the month of April for all retirees with CRSC who are currently sending in their premium payments (through direct remittance). Retirees can also request to voluntarily have their SBP premiums deducted from CSRC prior to the April SBP premium.?More detailed information about the required deduction of SBP premiums from CRSC (that will begin with the April 2018 CRSC entitlement paid on 1 MAY) will be posted on the DFAS website and included in the Retiree newsletters in the coming months. If you want to have your SBP premium deducted from your CRSC before the April SBP premium, call the DFAS Customer Care Center at 1-800-321-1080 and tell them you want to start having your SBP premium deducted from your CRSC pay. You will need to provide your full name, social security number, and a phone number where you can be reached during the day. You may also send a signed and dated letter to DFAS that has all of this information (including a phone number where you can be reached during the day). Note that the SBP premium deduction will be part of the garnishments total on your CRSC statement. Also, until April, you will continue to receive an SBP premium bill, which will show the CRSC SBP premium deduction as a “prior payment received” once the deduction is processed. You can check the DFAS website dfas.mil for more information regarding this change. Information will be updated there as more details are available. [Source: DFAS Retiree Newsletter | Dec 2017 ++]**********************Tax Plan 2017 Update 03 ? Service Member Impact ExamplesThe sweeping tax reform measure passed by Republican lawmakers 20 DEC includes few items specific to service members, but significant repercussions for military families in years to come. At the least, troops will see a host of new tax brackets and rules when they file taxes next year. The tax reform package drops rates for most taxpayers who make more than $10,000 annually, and supporters estimate that about three-quarters of Americans would get a tax cut under the plan. Kelly Hruska, government relations director for the National Military Family Association, said most of the issues she has seen with the tax changes involve changes in child tax credits, income rate changes and state tax issues — items that affect all taxpayers, not military members specifically. Earlier drafts included some troublesome spots for military-specific issues, like moving expenses and uniform costs, “But it looks as if a lot of those things have been addressed now,” she said. Here’s a look at how the tax changes could affect some typical military families:Example: An unmarried young sailor - Rank: Petty Officer (E-4) with four years service - Assignment: Naval Base San Diego, California - 2016 income: $28,500 Individuals in the lowest tax brackets will see the least benefit from the new tax plan, but that doesn’t mean they won’t see any benefits at all. For single filers making between $9,526 and $38,700, that means a shift from a 15 percent bracket to a 12 percent one, boosting their take-home money. For this example, the above sailor would see a savings of about $500 a year. But that can vary wildly depending on a service member’s circumstances. That $500 calculation assumes the sailor doesn’t have more than $10,000 in deductions — things like charitable contributions, uncovered medical expenses or mortgage interest costs. Lawmakers raised the standard deduction for single filers from $6,500 to $12,000, but also reduced the amount of personal deductions in the reform bill. As a result, some individuals with more unusual financial situations will see their taxes rise slightly, as those exemptions disappear. In addition, Congress put a cap on state and local tax deductions of $10,000 annually. For states like California — which has one of the highest individual income state rates in the country — the cap could significantly add to troops’ taxable income. But that is unlikely to hit lower-ranking troops.Example: A married soldier with two children - Rank: Sergeant First Class (E-7) with 12 years service - Assignment: Just moved to Fort Bliss, Texas - 2016 income: $96,000 The abovesoldier’s salary doesn’t include more than $17,000 in housing stipends over the course of the year, because those allowances aren’t taxable. And while the new tax reform bill does eliminate some deductions for moving expenses, the military was given an exemption, meaning those changes shouldn’t hit troops wallets. Assuming each spouse in this example earns roughly the same salary ($48,000 for the soldier alone in 2016), their family would end up in the third tax bracket, which drops from 28 percent to 22 percent under the new reform bill. The tax credit for children doubles to $2,000 per person, and the standard deduction for couples goes from $13,000 to $24,000. All those mean a significant boost in the family’s tax return under the new plan, somewhere in the range of around $3,000. Again, depending on how many deductions they lose under the plan, that refund could shrink. But the family is unlikely to pay more in taxes as a result of the changes.Example: A married Marine officer with one child -- Rank: First Lieutenant (O-2) with three years service -- Assignment: Owns a home near Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia -- 2016 income: $55,700Lawmakers changed some of the rules for mortgage interest deductions in the tax reform plans, but also added an exemption for military families after advocates voiced concerns about frequent moves hurting troops who own a home. As a result, the Marine family above should not see any changes in that aspect of its tax bill. This example uses only the Marine’s salary, assuming the spouse is a full-time caretaker for the child. Their income puts them squarely in the middle of the 12 percent tax bracket, and they’ll see the same benefits as the examples above from the standard deduction increases and the child tax credit boosts. Since Virginia has among the highest state tax rates in the country, they’re at higher risk of hitting that new $10,000 cap on deduction of local taxes, and could lose out on some previous savings. Still, the family is likely to see a tax refund increase around $1,500 under the new plan.Example: An unmarried senior Air Force officer -- Rank: Colonel (O-6) with 18 years service -- Assignment: Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada -- 2016 income: $112,000Even with an income over $100,000 annually, the above officer in this example still falls in the middle of seven tax brackets (the fifth bracket starts after $157,000 for single filers). Under the tax reform changes that drops from 28 percent to 24 percent. The new highest tax brackets — where income is hit at a 37 percent rate — start over $500,000 in yearly earnings. Because this example is a high-income single filer (and, without children, may have more unexempted financial investments than some married peers) the officer is more likely to run into the problem with eliminated deductions. They could swing the final tax bill by a few thousand dollars, depending on the specifics of what still can be claimed and what now becomes a new liability. Still, that range all falls on the side of more money for the taxpayer, somewhere between a few hundred dollars and more than $3,000.[Source: MilitaryTimes | Leo Shane III | December 20, 2017 ++]**********************Online Shopper Scam Update 01 ? Alleged Official Sports Merchandise A jersey from a fan's favorite team is a popular gift, but beware of online stores that offer "official" merchandise at unbelievably low prices. Scam websites are conning people out of their money this holiday season, according to BBB Scam Tracker reports from consumers.How the Scam WorksYou're looking for a jersey online, and you come across a site that promises great deals and fast shipping. You may have clicked on a social media ad or done a web search.The store isn't one you've heard of before. But with great photos and cheap prices, you decide to take a chance. After placing your order, your account is charged and you receive confirmation emails. Everything seems normal... until weeks pass and the jersey never arrives.Unfortunately, contacting the company usually doesn't help. One victim reported to BBB Scam Tracker, "I bought two NFL jerseys for my husband and son and have yet to receive them. I went to the email that was sent and tried to get in contact with customer service. There was no number to call and the website had been deactivated." A few victims received email responses in poor English offering various reasons why their purchase still hadn't shipped. In most cases, they never do.How to Avoid Online Purchase Scams:Be wary of deals that seem too good to be true. If the price of an item is significantly less than what it is on other well-known retailers' sites, this is a red flag that indicates a possible scam.Research the company before you purchase. If you want to make a purchase from a company you haven't heard of before. Check to see if they have a BBB Business Profile, or BBB Scam Tracker to see if anyone else has reported them as a scam. Look for contact information on their website and a robust social media presence to help determine if they are legitimate.Never wire money or use a prepaid debit card as payment. Both payment types are often requested by scammers and, once you've paid, there is no way to get your money back. Instead, make online purchases with your credit card and only on secure (https) websites. For More Information read more about online purchase scams on to protect yourself from fake online products and sellers. To learn more about scams, go to BBB Scam Tips (scamtips).To report a scam, go to BBB Scam Tracker at . [Source: BBB Scam Alert | December 22, 2017 ++]**********************Military Home Buyers ? Pre-approved vs. Pre-qualifiedMany military families seeking homes find themselves in competitive real-estate markets. Service members heading to installations near San Diego or Seattle, for instance, may see prices well above what they’re used to, and may need to put in bids in short order if a home catches their eye. It’s one of the reasons behind the simple message Travis Winfield, a retired Navy command senior chief-turned-San Diego real estate professional, gives to his prospective clients, including many first-time buyers. “The first piece of advice I give to anybody is to find a reputable lender who can give you a full pre-approval,” said Winfield, who left service in 2016. “There’s a difference between a pre-approval and a pre-qualification.” It may seem like semantics, but it’s not: Heading into a competitive real estate market with a pre-qualification likely won’t get the job done. As one mortgage banker told , “I tell most people they can take that pre-qualification letter and throw it in the trash.” That’s not to say pre-qualification doesn’t serve a purpose. Getting pre-qualified by a lender is a way to gauge how much you can afford to borrow. You provide financial details, and the lender provides an estimate: It’s a good way to get a ballpark figure for your housing search. But it’s a bad way to enter into a bidding war, especially if other offers are from pre-approved buyers. Pre-approval includes a more thorough review of finances (credit reports, bank statements, pay stubs, and so on) and a specific loan amount. According to Winfield and a handful of other Realtors in high-demand markets, it’s a necessity for serious house-hunting. It’s also a part of the process that can be completed in advance of high-stress, high-speed permanent change-of-station moves. “We don’t have time to wait until Monday to get pre-approved,” said Cassandra Rowley, a sailor-turned-Realtor who specializes in first-time home-buyers and military families in the Seattle area. “Make sure that’s done. … Any pre-approval works, we just need to make sure you’re pre-approved for a mortgage.” Ready to learn more about the process? Check out MilitaryTimes' VA Loan Center at . [Source: MilitaryTimes Home HQ | Kevin Lilley | December 21, 2017 ++]**********************Lowe's Military Discounts Update 01 ? Program Expansion & ChangesNational home improvement retailer Lowe's has expanded its everyday military discount program to include all honorably discharged veterans, as of May 2018. The chain also has expanded the 10 percent discount to Lowe's online shopping, which will include free parcel shipping. It will provide for faster checkout and add the ability to use the discount at self-checkout in stores, said Lowe's spokeswoman Karen Cobb. But the procedure for getting the discount has changed: Active-duty service members, retirees and veterans must must sign up online at for the Lowe's personal shopping card to qualify for the discount. This is not a credit card. If you do not want a card you have the option of using your phone number. Spouses and dependent children up to age 18 can also get the discount, although the online signup process doesn't include an option for spouses or children. "The discount is linked to a MyLowes account, which can be shared by a household," said Megan Lewis, a Lowe’s spokeswoman. "Once the service member signs up for the discount program, it will be linked to a MyLowes card that can also be used by their spouse." Lowe's has offered discounts to military members and veterans for more than a decade. Previously, the 10 percent discount at Lowe's was available every day to active-duty service members, retired military and other veterans receiving VA benefits who showed their identification. For other honorably discharged veterans, the discount was limited to three days – Memorial Day, July 4 and Veterans Day. "The verification process is designed to be a simplified one-time signup," Lewis said. "Military and veteran customers can simply present their MyLowes card at checkout rather than show military credentials each time." Lowe's is phasing out the practice of presenting the ID at checkout, Cobb said. The website notes that Lowe's used a third party to verify eligibility for online enrollment, and may require additional documentation. In announcing the change, Robert A. Niblock, the chain's chairman, president and CEO, pointed to the business's founder, Army veteran Carl Buchan. "Enhancing our discount program honors his memory and the commitment servicemen and women and their families make to our country," Niblock said. [Source: MoneyTalksNews | Stacy Johnson | December 12, 2017 ++]**********************Notes of Interest ? 15 thru 31 DEC 2017Icebergs. The Coast Guard International Ice Patrol says more than 1,000 icebergs drifted into shipping lanes in the North Atlantic this year, up significantly from last year's 687. Ice Patrol officials classified the ice season as extreme for the fourth year in a row.BAH. Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) paid to 956,000 servicemembers living off base in the United States will climb modestly 1 JAN, an average of only 0.7 percent or $10 a month, as an allowance-dampening formula enters its fourth year.Marriage. We had a power outage at our house and my PC, laptop, TV, DVD, iPad & my new surround sound music system were all shut down. Then I discovered that my mobile phone battery was dead and to top it off it was raining outside, so I couldn't play golf. I went into the kitchen to make coffee and then I remembered that this also needs power, so I sat and talked with my wife for a couple of hours.?You know……she seems like a nice person!Memorial. To view a 'Mysterious' Vietnam War Memorial not found on any map check out . USMC MOH Recipients. Check out to view the first two of a series of short videos starting with the 302 Marines who have earned the MOH since its inception. Something you might want to watch with your kids and grandkids -- if they are in their teens -- so they can see what it is like to be become one of the few and the proud.Red Baron. Check out the video at which is allegedly from 1917 of the most famous fighter pilot ever. CarFit. According to AAA, people 65 and older are more than twice as likely as younger drivers to be killed when involved in a crash. Some 90 percent of drivers older than 65 do not make simple safety adaptations to their cars to improve driving safety. Older drivers are not using simple adaptations such as steering wheel covers, seat cushions and pedal extensions that can extend their years behind the wheel. Check out for a video that will walk you through the steps to take to enhance your safety. USAF Warrant Officers -- After years of resistance, the Air Force might be warming to the concept of warrant officer. In February, the service’s manpower and readiness department is expected to finish a study on whether having some specialized enlisted airmen serve as warrant officers would make the Air Force more lethal and ernment Salaries. The U.S. government pays employees a total of about $1 million per minute, according to a watchdog group’s report on the sprawling federal bureaucracy. Looking at 78 large agencies, the nonprofit organization found that the average salary of a federal employee exceeds $100,000 and that roughly 1 in 5 of those on the government payroll has a six-figure salary. Argentine Sub. The U.S. Navy is wrapping up its search for a missing Argentine submarine that disappeared in November with 44 crew aboard. At the height of its efforts, the U.S. had more than 200 personnel assigned to the mission, including P-8 Poseidon aircraft, four submersibles, an underwater rescue unit and various equipment. The U.S. Navy dropped more than 400 sonobuoys during the effort to locate the submarine San Juan. SOUTHCOM did a complete sweep of its assigned areas twice and were unable to locate the sub.Spitfire 944. Check out the 15 min short video of 83 year old John Blyth discussing his experiences as an aerial reconnaissance pilot at . A bit of WWII history. [Source: Various | December 15, 2017 ++]***********************Solar Energy ? Solar's Dirty Little SecretSolar energy is touted as clean, however, The Associated Press has reported that many panel makers are grappling with a hazardous waste problem. Fueled partly by billions in government incentives, the industry is creating millions of solar panels each year and, in the process, millions of pounds of toxic sludge and contaminated water. To dispose of this material, the companies must transport it by truck or rail far from their own plants to waste facilities hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of miles away. The fossil fuels used to transport that waste, experts say, is not typically considered in calculating solar’s carbon footprint, giving scientists and consumers who use the measurement to gauge a product’s impact on global warming the impression that solar is cleaner than it is. A study by Environmental Progress (EP) warns that toxic waste from used solar panels now poses a global environmental threat. Last November, Japan’s Environment Ministry issued a stark warning: the amount of solar panel waste Japan produces every year will rise from 10,000 to 800,000 tons by 2040, and the nation has no plan for safely disposing of it. Neither does California, a world leader in deploying solar panels. Only Europe requires a solar panel maker to collect and dispose of solar waste at the end of their lives. All of which raises the question: just how big of a problem is solar waste? EP investigated the problem to see how it compared to the much more high-profile issue of nuclear waste. They found:Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than do nuclear plants.While nuclear waste is contained in heavy drums and regularly monitored, solar waste outside of Europe today ends up in the larger global stream of electronic waste. This will also be a problem in the US, which has more than 1.4 million solar energy installations now is use, including many already near the end of their 25-year lifespan. Federal and state governments have been slow to enact disposal and recycling policies, undoubtedly fearful of raising any red flags about the environmental threat posed by a purported climate change panacea. EP estimates that Americans with solar roofs produce 30 to 60 percent more electronic waste than non-solar households.In countries like China, India and Ghana, communities living near e-waste dumps often burn the waste in order to salvage the valuable copper wires for resale. Since this process requires burning off the plastic, the resulting smoke contains toxic fumes that are carcinogenic and teratogenic (birth-defect causing) when inhaled. This is not to even mention the environmental damage done by making solar panels in the first place. A 2013 investigation found that from 2007 to 2011, the manufacture of solar panels in California produced 46.5 million pounds of sludge and contaminated water. Roughly 97 percent of it was taken to hazardous waste facilities throughout the state, but more than 1.4 million pounds were transported to nine other states. That’s no way for a state to keep its carbon footprint small. Six years later, it’s safe to assume the amount of toxic waste is even higher as solar panel production continues to ramp up. Julie Kelly sums this up well:, “These are some of the dirty little secrets behind the push for renewable energy. While consumers might view solar panels as harmless little windows made of glass and plastic, the reality is that they are intricately constructed from a variety of materials, making it difficult to disassemble and recycle them. [Source: Canada Free Press | Jack Dini | December 17, 2017 ++]***********************FAIR USE NOTICE: This newsletter may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The Editor/Publisher of the Bulletin at times includes such material in an effort to advance reader’s understanding of veterans' issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this newsletter is distributed without profit to those who have expressed an interest in receiving the included information for educating themselves on veteran issues so they can better communicate with their legislators on issues affecting them. To obtain more information on Fair Use refer to: http: //law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this newsletter for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. ................
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